“My thanks,” the Mongol said, as he sipped. He looked admiringly at the hangings, the colored and wheel-cut glass of the table service, the inlaid brass of the tables. “My friend Karl said he would return my hospitality, and he has done so tenfold.”
He bowed from the waist to Erika. “It grieved me that I could not attend his wedding, noble lady, after he and I had hunted and fought together. Affairs of state; I was called to the court of my liegelord the Gur-Khan Yesugei, son of Yesugei, overlord of the Yek and the Merkit, the earth lies at his feet.” The latter was in a perfunctory sing-song. Erika recalled what Karl had told her; Ashkabad and the tribes surrounding had been allowed to keep their lands by the Mongol conquerors, two generations ago, subject to tribute and levies in time of war; the fortress of Ashkabad-town was held by a kinsman as vassal khan, with a garrison of Yek warriors.
The noyon continued: “But it was fortunate for me; my mother”--a nod to Hoelun, who had spoken perhaps half a dozen words during the meal--”arranged for my own betrothal to the maiden Borke, daughter of the gur-khan’s younger brother Hulagu.” Obviously a dynastic union, but Toktai seemed pleased enough. “We expect her at any time, her caravan left the Black Tents two weeks ago.” Those were Haven weeks, each of three 87-hour days; nearly a T-month. “You and your lady and your honored sire would please me greatly if you attended. So say I and my father, the Khan Yuechi, whom the Wantegri bless.’
Karl’s father Yigal bowed in turn, equally courtly. “May the favor of Yeweh lie on him,” he said.
Erika looked up sharply; there was a slight breathiness to his voice. Too gaunt, she thought with worry; the older man’s square boney face seemed to have fallen in on the strong slab shapes in the year since he had danced at her wedding. Her eyes met her mother-in-law’s with shared concern; Yigal was darker than his son, but otherwise much like him. The heritage of Frystaat showed in the massiveness of their bones, and would internally as well. That folk had not used genetic engineering to adapt to their planet as the Saurons had, but eight tenths of the original immigrants had died within a generation. Their descendants seldom lived past fifty; the supercharged hearts and lungs needed to stand the killing gravity burned themselves out.
“His friendship and yours honors my House,” Yigal continued. “Indeed, the whole Pale values the regard of the House of Yesugei, son of Yesugei, the earth lies at his feet.” Which was quite true, since Ashkabad was crucial to all the northern trade. “Our kapetein--” the Mongol would hear that as “khan”; in fact, the ruler of the haBandari was elected, although always from the descendants of Piet van Reenan “--entrusted my son with these tokens of our regard.”
The packages came forward. Silk robes for the khatun, embroidered in metallic thread of platinum and gold, with tiny chips of ruby and shimmerstone for the eyes of the dragons and landgators and firebirds that sprawled across it; a mirror of real silvered glass in a frame of worked bronze, completed the set. For her son, weapons; his hands were eager as he took the belt that bore them. The outer surface was black beefleather, tooled and stamped with silver designs of running tamerlanes and cliff lions, the whole lined with tough drillbit gut. He drew the saber; the hilt was searay ivory, and the basket guard brass inlaid with nacre. The meter length of blade was severely plain by contrast, except for the patterns in the steel itself, wave-shapes where layers of soft iron and hard steel had been bent, heated, and hammered together, again and again.
“Ahhh,” Toktai said. “Look, the edge is as hard as glass, sharp enough to cut a drifting thread, but the rear of the blade is as flexible and tough as a crowbar! How do you do it?” He seemed a little taken aback when Erika answered:
“Layer forging and surface-hardening,” she said, reaching over to flick a nail against the edge; it rang. “A strip of wootz steel welded onto the edge; you cover the sword with fireclay, thick at the back and leaving the edge clear. Then pack it in a stone box full of powdered charcoal and keep it at red heat for several days.” She grinned impishly. “Plus tempering, grinding, all the things a van Gimbutas smith could tell you.”
Toktai nodded thanks. “Your lady Erika has . . . considerable knowledge,” he said.
“A scholar,” Karl answered with pride. To his father: “That’s why we didn’t come in with the caravan. Erika wanted to see the old ruins, the ones Aldigiras bar Voldemaris found during the Aydin War.” That had been twenty years ago, in the turmoil that followed the fall of Angband Base and the last Sauron raid on the Eden Valley.
The two Mongols both made signs against evil. “Imperial things? Hoelun asked. “Ill-luck to meddle with them. Atoms.”
“Ahh--” Erika paused to marshal a diplomatic answer. “We have a way of finding those which are dangerous.” Paper soaked in salts of silver, but rarely needed these days; it had been a long three centuries since the Sauron nuclear bombardment. “Not Imperial by origin, I think. Older, right back to the CoDominium.’ The young haBandari woman shivered slightly, remembering the shock of finding the ancient sigil of Earth’s last state, the Americ eagle combined with the Russki hammer and sickle. Ceramic as fresh and unfaded as the day it was made nine hundred years ago, amid the crumbled sand-drifted concrete.
“Abandoned for a while, then used for many different things during the Imperial period.” There had been a covered borehole, useless now but precious in those far-off days when electric pumps were available. She reached into a pocket of her second-best trousers and pulled out a plastic-coated alloy buckle, with double lightning-flash 7’s superimposed on the Phoenix blazon of the Empire of Man.
“This is what interested me, I thought there might be something like this from hints bar Voldemaris left in his reports. The Seventy-Seventh must have had a unit there, just before the end.”
Everyone knew what she meant; despite the centuries since their withdrawal during the Secession Wars the name of the Land Gators, the 77th Imperial Marine Division, still lived on in Haven legend. Ruth bat Boaz’s famous Lament had its narrator calling their spirits home, when the Saurons came and found Haven defenseless. Erika remembered reciting it to herself as she stood among the tumbled stones; there had been another relic, a faded holograph of a young woman with a child, lost in a hasty evacuation. Was she left behind? Erika had wondered. Did he remember her, dying on some planet far away? Did she remember him, when the Dol Guldur came?
“Your pardon, lady,” Toktai said, “but what exactly was it you were a scholar of?”
“Oh, the usual things,” Erika said. All haBandari children learned letters and numbers, and the traditions of the People. Illona’sstaad was a center for learning, as well. “Accounting. And, ah, military history, mainly.”
‘Well, I’d not say anything against the luck of those who can make gifts as royal as these,” Toktai said politely, resheathing the sword with visible reluctance. They say you haBandari are tight-fisted and hard bargainers, but now I can testify that you know how to give like chieftains.”
Hoelun muttered something in the barking syllables of her native tongue, then continued in common Turkic: “Wealth must come to those fortunate enough to pay no tribute to the Saurons,” she said, ignoring her son’s frown.
Karl showed his teeth in a smile. “They’ve tried taking it, often enough,” he said evenly. Then to Toktai: ‘But it was a stroke of inspiration by the Founder”--so the haBandari called Piet van Reenan, even those who did not make sacrifice to his shrine or believe his spirit abided to guard the People--”to seize the Eden Valley as the heart of the Pale. Nothing south of us but wilderness and the sea beyond that, and it’s as far from Quilland Base as you can get.”
The Mongol prince nodded unhappily. His people held good grazing by the tens of thousands of square kilometers, but little lowland. There was the northern seacoast, but that was hideously difficult to reach across the Tierra del Muerte, barriered with deadly marsh, frozen almost all the year. To the west the only pass to the coastlands was held by the city-state of San Ynez; high enough to kill some
with altitude sickness in summer, frozen in winter, altogether too risky to send pregnant women along. Which left Quilland Base’s territory as the only practical alternative.
“It’s a shame to us, even though the tribute we pay for passage is lighter than most,” he said. “Worse shame that we let their tax collectors go freely among our tributaries here, whey-faced Turks though they are, but it was their price for not interfering when we took Ashkabad from the Kalmuks. I’d hoped we could arrange to use the Eden Valley, or Tallinn.”
Yigal spread his hands. “We already take in many, noyon,” he said. “It’s not a matter of gold, but of grain.” The land would feed just so many unproductive expectant mothers, after the women from the higher parts of the Pale were accommodated.
Toktai sighed. “And so we must tolerate the arrogance of the Lidless Eye,” he said with some bitterness. “Even now a patrol is out taking women and stock from the clans hereabouts, and killing any who resist. The Buddha curse them to miserable rebirth!”
“Amen,” the haBandari echoed; many of the People believed that souls returned. Then Yigal stiffened:
“Karl . . . Shulamit was going to meet you south of here.”
Erika’s eyes tracked to her father-in-law. “When?” she said.
“They left four days ago. Her and a dozen others, guards and mercenaries, wildechaveri, young hot-bloods who’d been hanging about after their caravans disbanded.”
Karl’s mouth had gone tight. “They could have missed us when we turned west to the ruins,” he said bleakly. Erika answered with his own thought:
“Shulamit? She could track a ghost over a glacier!” Their eyes met. Shulamit, their shared thought ran. Who hates Saurons even more than most. Twenty-years before the Soldiers had raided the Eden Valley, part of a probing expedition after the fall of Angband Base. Shulamit’s father had fallen defending the Bashan Pass; at her Bat Mizvah his daughter had sworn to kill a Sauron for every year her father had missed of his threescore and ten. Shulamit, who’s been wilder than ever since Karl bar Yigal ended their stormy love affair by proposing to her younger sister.
Karl opened his mouth to speak, closed it at the shouting outside the door. It burst open, and a figure staggered through to fall prone at Toktai’s feet. Tom Jerrison followed, scowling, his sledgehammer ready in his hand.
“Da hijputa wunna alto,” he said in Americ: The bastard wouldn’t stop.
Erika caught her breath. The man was of Toktai’s race, still dressed in leather armor and plainsman’s wool. A cut from brow to upper lip had left one eye a cratered ruin that oozed; the wound itself was bone-deep, and it wept pus. A stab under the lower ribs on one side had left a sheet of dried blood down that leg, and more ran in a sluggish trickle as he lay. Pink foam was on his lips as he struggled to grunt out his message; he ignored it, as he ignored the quick skilled hands of Karl’s mother; Hagar bat Katherine had been born to the fan Allon clan, and trained as a mediko.
“Lucie, get my kit,” she snapped, using a sharp clean carving knife to slice through the straps of the cuirass and the cloth beneath. “Bandages, mould-powder, a saline drip, hot water, quickly!”
Toktai listened to the wounded man, answered, touched his forehead with a curious gentleness. Erika forced herself not to flinch at the expression on the flat, hard face.
“My bride,” he said. “Borte, the gur-khan’s brother’s daughter. The caravan was ambushed. Most slaughtered, she and her attendant carried off.”
“Saurons?” Karl said. Yigal had called several of his retainers, speaking quickly and softly.
“No. It might as well be,” Toktai said. “Cossaki dogs, of the Bergenov stanitsa. We beat them in my father’s time, and my grandfather’s. The Saurons have taken their valley of Belogrod, and now they are driving them west. Into our lands!” He nodded bitterly. “Now we know why they have sent their tribute-takers through the tribes; to weaken them for the Cossaki, so that their defeat may weaken us. Psin”--his foot indicated the wounded man, unconscious as his host’s wife worked to save him--”says they saw a Sauron patrol pass one Haven-day before the attack; the Cossaki came in the Soldier’s footsteps.” He stood, faced Karl. “Is this your fight, my anada?”
Karl’s hand gripped his. “My kinswoman Shulamit is out there, too,” he said, in a voice equally flat. “And if she were not, an oath is an oath. Three hours, by the east gate?”
Toktai nodded silently and stalked from the room. Karl was already calling to faces in the banquet crowd:
“Shimon, Itzak, Kosti, Jadwiga,” he barked. “Everybody who’ll come except the gate guard; you vet them, no shopkeepers or clerks, full kit, three remounts each and see they won’t founder. Father, we can draw on the settlement stores?” Like any haBandari town, the Ashkabad enclave had its armory and communal storehouses that any of the People could use at need. “Kosti, take half the rifles and a hundred rounds each. Let’s move, people!”
Erika waited in the silence that filled the room as they left, swallowing. Shulamit, she thought. Oh, sister . . . if you’re dead, how can you forgive me? The anima of the ancestors will cast my soul out of the People. . . .
She looked down at her mother-in-law. “Will he live?” she said, as the older woman sat back on her heels and wiped her blood-smeared hands.
“Perhaps,’ Hagar sighed. “He’s got a collapsed lung, that’s not good up here.” This was the nigh steppe, where even the barrel-chested products of a thousand years of natural selection were at risk. “We’ll see.”
Hoelun snorted as she came to her feet. Erika started slightly; she had not even been conscious of the Mongol woman’s presence.
“We may all see our men brought back dead,” she said heavily. “They are born to such things . . .” More softly: “Borte was a merry child, who grew into a girl worthy of her blood; she and Toktai would have made a good match. Now her hopes are dust even if she lives, and I may see no grandchildren.” She turned her head to look at Erika, greenish slit eyes meeting hazel. “I will light joss sticks to the boddhavistas,” she said. “What will you do, young scholar?”
The haBandari looked at her in puzzlement. “Ride with my man,” she said, raising her brows. “What else?”
“Danke,” Shulamit said, taking the bowl and a round of stale flatbread from Borte’s hands.
The smell was intoxicating, the first hot food in more days than she cared to count. Stew, slices of mutton boiled in water thickened with powdered dried milk, bits of liver and kidney and heart from the sheep they had slaughtered . . . but there was business first. Gorthaur had placed her bedroll beside his. Shulamit kicked it over to the other side of the fire in its circle of rock, sinking down with the rolled leather and duck-down between her buttocks and the cold rock. Damned if I’m going to screw with an audience, she thought. Coldly: Let’s see, they say five times to take . . . probably more than enough. “Shul-mit,” the girl said.
“Mmurph?” Shulamit replied, through a mouthful of stew. The rich fat was intoxicating, after weeks on biltong. The sticks of dried meat would keep you going, but they were lean; the body craved calories, burned them fast when you had to move and fight in steppe weather. Thank Yeweh it isn’t winter, she thought, watching her breath steam in the night air. The hairs on the inside of her nostrils were crinkling anyway. Cat’s Eye was a crescent a handspan over the northern horizon, the darkened three-quarters a dull, red glow next to the banded brightness of the visible slice. Two of the other moons were up, whetted sickles.. . .
“You Sauron’s woman?” Borte continued, busying herself with a pan. The fire burned acridly, dung and mineral-heavy native Haven scrub and the fat-wrapped bones of the sheep, but the stones piled around it would keep the glow from showing far.
“No.” Shulamit grinned at her back. I’m an unwillingly unmarried meid who plans ahead, she thought to herself. Aloud: “I my woman. Maybe Gorthaur think different.”
Borte turned her head over her shoulder, and surprised the other woman with a slight sm
ile. “I remember,” she said; she passed the haBandari a cup of eggbush tea and served herself a bowl of the stew. “How you, him, ride together?” “Long story,” Shulamit said.
“Long night,” Borte said, bringing over the pan. It held rags, heated in a little of the precious cooking oil they had found with the raiders. Shulamit rolled up her pantleg over the injured knee and sighed with relief as the hot cloth settled over it. The swelling had gone down, and the pain was less. Better, she thought, suppressing a nagging worry. Knee injuries were tricky, and it might never be as good as it had been . . . “Long night, long story,” Borte prompted again.
The haBandari laughed. “Da,” she said, searching for the words. Why can’t everyone speak Bandarit, or at least Americ? she thought. “Shto--”
Gorthaur returned while she was telling the tale; he stopped and glanced at his bedding where it lay across the fire from the others’. Shulamit gave him a cool smile, without interrupting the flow of words. Take it in hand and walk to the Citadel with it, Sauron, she thought; from what she knew of Sauron custom, frustration of this sort was not something Gorthaur would be used to. Far too early for him to force a confrontation, and meanwhile her knee was healing faster than his arm, the greater degree of injury making up for the superior Sauron metabolism. Bit of a relief. Bedding him had been . . . odd. It was the first time she had done it without affection and with an ulterior motive, for one thing. For another, he’s got all the finesse of a forgemill trip-hammer. And the staying power: I’m sore.
Gorthaur helped himself to the food, stoking himself with methodical calm and taking long pulls at a flash of wadiki between mouthfuls; alcohol affected his breed much less than human norms, and there was a good deal of food energy in it. But a little of drowning sorrows, too, Shulamit thought maliciously, as she came to the end of her story. Borte was staring rapt.
War World III: Sauron Dominion Page 30