Union Forever

by William R. Forstchen

  "And yet we need them now," Tamuka said, stretching his long limbs with a groan. Sitting down, he leaned back against the trunk of a tree and looked back across the river. The city was quiet tonight, the lights darkened so that it looked as if it were inhabited only by ghosts.

  Why was it that cattle chose to live thus, clustered together in stinking hovels, hidden behind walls, living with their own stench? The endless steppe of Valennia held such beauty when the rolling hills of winter turned scarlet with the sunrise as if the world were afire, or when the twilight settled across the encampments and the voices of the chanters rose to the everlasting heavens as the first light of the night appeared in the cloudless sky. How could cattle live so, when the grass of the vast fertile plains of Constan rose as high as a horse's head, so that when they rode it appeared as if the umens were but floating effortlessly through the green waves?

  Or when the mark of a circling had been completed and the roof of the world rose up out of the endless plains, when Barkth Num, the place where the spirits of the ancestors could touch the world, first appeared, a tiny sliver of white rising up out of the endless sea of green, when still ten days' ride away.

  How could these cattle live, Tamuka wondered, without ever having gazed upon the things that he had seen? His thoughts turned to the day he rode alone into the high sacred hills of Barkth, yet still a quarter circling away, where the fires of the sky danced between the peaks, the rocky bare teeth of the world jutting to the heavens.

  He smiled at the memory of the fear within when first he had approached the sacred place, for it had been his passage time, when all who had been born in the previous circling and could wield bow and lance went alone to dwell for thirty days in the high mountains, to fast and seek their ka, the inner spirit of the warrior. Smiling, he remembered the night of fire in the sky, the ancestors riding above in glory, sweeping across the endless heavens, the manes of their horses flickering and dancing, their arrow shafts streaking down with a fiery light. It was on that night that they had granted him their talisman, the fiery light dropping down, striking the high ice-clad mountains with their light. By the glow of the fire he had climbed in the night, finding the still-warm fragments of their arrow.

  Reaching under his leather armor, he felt the small pouch of tanned cattle hide, the talisman safely locked within.

  Hulagar, sitting beside him, smiled.

  "Thinking of Barkth?"

  Though Tamuka was nearly a circling younger than himself, still Hulagar looked upon the young shield-bearer with a certain awe. The mark of the ancestors had been granted to him. He had been chosen as a shield-bearer before his twelfth spring, the year before they had at last returned to the high mountains, the place where according to the chanters the ancestors had first come to Valennia ten thousand circlings ago.

  "In another five years we'll be there again," Tamuka replied with a smile. "It will be strange to see it again, the roof of the world, the place of rest."

  "I had often prayed I would look upon it once more," Hulagar replied, "to perhaps be honored among the honored and to have my bones rest there, rather than to be scattered across the endless sea of grass."

  "Hulagar, you talk foolishness. Perhaps in the circling to come, when we return once more, and your coat is gray, perhaps then."

  "Our world is changing," Hulagar sighed.

  "The war with the Bantag? It is but a passing thing," Tamuka replied. "It has always been thus, but it will pass. Yes, it is true they press us now. My sire would chant to me of the days of his youth when the Bantag were cast down by Gorgath, the grandsire of Jubadi, and the steppe was red with their blood. So it has always been. A circling ago it was the Tugars who pressed us as well—even I have memory of our defeat at Orki. And now the Tugars are but beggars."

  "At the hands of cattle they were made such," Hulagar replied. "Over there, before that city, they were destroyed, and now you and I hide in the shadows of night and gaze upon that accursed place where cattle cast down brothers of the horde."

  "You sound fearful," Tamuka whispered.

  "I am fearful," Hulagar admitted.

  Tamuka looked over at the shield-bearer of the Qar Qarth and nodded respectfully. No warrior would ever admit his fear, not even to his own ka. Yet Hulagar was a shield-bearer, as was he, trained by the small circle of his brotherhood to look for a truth within even when the truth created words that would bring scorn from others. For how else was a Qar Qarth to be guided in his limitless power, unless one rode by his side who could clearly see all things?

  "Speak to me of your fear," Tamuka said, turning to face Hulagar.

  "There was a great change in our clans, a hundred and fifty circlings ago," Hulagar started, half speaking, half chanting his words, so that Tamuka shivered, for it was a sign that a spirit had entered Hulagar and was guiding his words.

  "For we knew that the tunnel of light, the path of the ancestor gods, those who walked between the stars, reached beyond to many places. Things that were strange to us would suddenly appear, things that would shrivel and die under the light of our sun. Yet other things such as the Ewa who walk like us and are the cattle of the Pao beyond the Bantag realm, or the dreaded Yor, whom we cast down. Strange plants, the fruit of the Desar, the very trees of this great forest, these things came to us. And the cattle would come as well, always the cattle. Yet all were the same yet different, coming it seemed from many places, but we did not know these things, for we of the horde dwelled in Barkth, chanting for the return of our ancestor gods, who left us here ten thousand circlings ago."

  Tamuka nodded at Hulagar's words, for thus was the fabric of the songs sung in the evening before the fires, the women and children of the horde sitting about the circles, the warriors standing behind their kin.

  "And then came the cattle that brought us the horse, the sacred gift sent by the ancestor gods, and we took this gift and rode forth upon the endless circling of the world, freeing ourselves, forever riding toward the sun, our eyes searching ever forward, to search for the path to the stars, to bring the world of Valennia into our hands as we came to know what was our birthright. No longer did we grub in the dirt for our food, for the ancestors had sent us the cattle. They had sent us all that we desired, hearing our prayers, the horse for our strength, the cattle to be our servants and food.

  "They set us free."

  Hulagar sighed, his eyes closed, and Tamuka could see the spirit still lingered within, and patiently he waited.

  "I hear a voice of fear whispering in the wind," Hulagar sighed.

  Tamuka felt the hair of his body prickle, and he let it pass through him, for he was a shield-bearer, one who must look within, and he did not retreat from Hulagar's words.

  "The cattle have changed," Hulagar sighed. "The balance of the world has tumbled down. The Visu, the bird that sings, now devours the hunters of the air, the mouse leaps upon the throat of the fox. The cattle are changing, and we must become like them, and they are becoming like us. The balance is dropping away. Our ancestors who ride the sky look down in fear, they call to us in warning, for here is the placing of ending forever. The joy of the everlasting ride, the freedom of all that we are, it is slipping away into the night. We come back to Barkth, and will we ever ride again in innocence?"

  Hulagar fell silent.

  The screech of a night hawk cut through the air, and Hulagar stirred, opened his eyes, and looked over at Tamuka.

  "We are all fools if we think we can put away such things as that," and he motioned toward the Ogunquit anchored in the middle of the river.

  "Then annihilate all the cattle," Tamuka said dryly, "so that not one of them is left alive to remember such things. At least then we will eat well for a season or two. When next we circle this way, we can bring new cattle from other lands. There are far too many of the Constan already—let us drive a million of them east to bring back these lands. We did such things in our past, moving great herds of them, placing them around the world to do our bidding."
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  "Two years ago, the infection was only here," Hulagar said, pointing back across the river. "If the Tugars had not been such fools, they could have ended it, and we would not even be aware.

  "Now there are three people of the cattle who know how to make machines, machines we do not understand. No, Tamuka, this knowledge will spread like a fire before us. Think you—if you were a cattle, how would you feel if rumor came that we could be so easily slain?"

  "To think like a cattle is loathsome," Tamuka said evenly.

  "Yet you are a shield-bearer—you must learn to think like all creatures to serve your Qarth."

  Tamuka hesitated.

  "To think like a cattle, Hulagar? I must strip away all that I am, to no longer know that I am the chosen of my ancestors, the destined masters of the never-ending steppe. That alone I can walk into a cattle dwelling and choose who will be taken for my table to nourish my kin. That alone I could walk among ten thousand of them and they would tremble at my presence, and if I commanded all would bare their throats to my blade."

  Tamuka's face wrinkled with disgust.

  "How can they bear to live?"

  "Yet they think, they feel, they cry pitifully when we lead their kin to our pits," Hulagar said evenly. "Therefore they can hate us, and yes, they can even dream of what they can do to us if but given the means."

  "I think more for the feelings of my horse than for them," Tamuka replied.

  "As do I," Hulagar replied. "My horse is the companion of my ka, destined to ride with me in the ancestor world. Cattle are but nourishment for my stomach, destined to feed me in the next world as well.

  "But cattle now make weapons, horses do not. Across this great world they are as numberless as the stalks of grass. Ten times our number, a hundred times our number perhaps. The knowledge that was bred in that city will leap out."

  "I have heard," Tamuka said, "that when those in that city thought they were to be defeated, Muzta Qar Qarth still offered them quarter, that the required number would be taken for the pits, and the others could still live as they always had."

  "And they refused," Hulagar said forcefully. "Their leader, Keane, said they would all die rather than continue living under the yoke. I have heard that too.

  "That is our thinking, Tamuka. That would be our response if the world were truly turned about, and the cattle came riding to our gates. We would all die rather than to submit to their indignity.

  "They now have the dream to defeat us, and they now have the means as well. We could slaughter all of them, and yet the Wanderers, whom we can never catch, will carry the word, will carry the knowledge as well, as they already do with those who stopped the pox sickness. It is impossible to stop now."

  Tamuka stood up and walked down to the bank of the river and looked across to the city. A flash of light lit the sky. From farther up the river a trail of fire rose into the heavens, cutting an arc across the midnight sky. It seemed to hover for a moment and then ever so slowly dropped downward, moving ever faster, and then disappeared. There was a flash of light, and long seconds later a dull thunder rolled back across the river.

  "We must learn all there is to be learned from them," Tamuka said forcefully, looking back into the shadows where Hulagar still sat. "We must learn to fashion with our own hands the weapons they have, and not just trick cattle into forging these things for us."

  "The world we have known for countless circlings will be no more then," Hulagar replied.

  "Then it will be no more."

  "My Qar Qarth plans to use these cattle weapons against the Bantag."

  "Foolishness."

  "Why?"

  "It is they who are the enemy," Tamuka said, pointing to the city. "All of us are threatened by what they are. Let the cattle slaughter cattle, but why must Merki slay Bantag?"

  "For it is how we have always shown that we are warriors, it is the reason we ride, the reason we live. That is what war is for, to drive our enemies, to feel our ka exalt at their lamentations."

  "The cattle have discovered war as well, Hulagar shield-bearer. But for them it is to destroy us. Glory is meaningless. All must be made to see that truth, that the very reason for war has changed forever until we cleanse this strange thinking from our world."

  "I have noticed something, though," Hulagar replied. "Where do the machines that kill, that ride upon water without wind, that we have heard even move without horses across dry land—where do these things come from?"

  "The buildings they call factories," Tamuka responded. "Why?"

  "Buildings do not move. If we wish to make these things, we must make these buildings and the machines that make machines and labor ourselves within them."

  The reasoning of Hulagar stunned him; with a heart full of bitterness he looked back at the city.

  Is that our doom? he thought with loathing. To live we must become like that, no longer ride with the wind in the face, but labor before the hot fires the cattle have created. To fashion with one's hands rather than to draw the bow with one's strength.

  "And think upon this as well.

  "I saw the first cannon that the Yankees created, the one they traded to the Carthas for their metal to make more such things. It was small—the barrel could almost be lifted by one warrior. Now they make new ones, ones that it would take the strength of fifty to lift, that can strike down walls, can slay like the one that just shot so far away one cannot even see his foe.

  "These cattle are cunning. The one Keane makes a weapon, then Cromwell makes one even stronger.

  "I suspect, even," he added, "that when this Keane returns he will have weapons even more powerful. I have seen the sacred bows of the Qar Qarth hidden within the holy yurt, bows held by sires a hundred circlings ago. They are all the same. It is not so with the Yankee weapon makers. They will continue to change things even as we change."

  "I told you of the new thing that I saw in the Cartha city," Tamuka said hopefully. "It contains even a device of our most ancient ancestors in it."

  "Perhaps for the moment it will help us," Hulagar said, "but the Yankees will forge something in reply."

  Tamuka felt his senses reeling with all that he was now contemplating. If they were using something taken from the barrow of an ancient found upon the endless steppe, what might they not find upon the roof of the world, the sacred place where the ancestors had dwelled for countless generations? What might they find there to save themselves? he wondered.

  All that would have to be done if they were to survive. And he realized as well that he was a shield-bearer, trained to such thinking. How would the Qarths of the clans receive such things? How would the warriors who thought only with their ka react if told to think such things? How would the Zan Qarth, who would lead his people to such new things, react as well?

  That, after all, he realized, would be his greatest task. The responsibility of all that he was tasked to do was now clear.

  "I understand why you have made me consider this," Tamuka said, looking back at Hulagar with admiration.

  "The Qar Qarth is the noblest of Qarths," Hulagar replied. "He has led since Orki, he has held back the strength of the Bantag with his cunning. The ka of the shield-bearer could never do such a thing—that is why he is the Qar Qarth and such as we are not. Yet I fear he will not truly understand all that needs to be done for our people.

  "Though Jubadi did not see all these other reasons, nor, I think, could he ever understand them, I believe Mantu will. There is, it seems, a touch of our thinking in him. His ka was never as strong, but we need one now who beyond having the cunning of a true warrior must have the ability to heed our words as well."

  Hulagar stood up and walked down to join Tamuka.

  "Vuka could never be the one."

  "The injunctions still must be obeyed," Tamuka sighed. "Mantu has been chosen. It is a shame about Kan—he could have served as well. I must ensure that Vuka's spirit will ride in peace. The ancestors would surely turn away from us if his spirit went to them in disg
race."

  "Let us hope you can choose the time soon."

  Tamuka nodded, his spirit burdened by what he must do, and by the understanding now of all that it meant. He sensed that the crisis would soon be upon them, that somehow the one called Keane would return. Perhaps it would be there, perhaps it would be when the long-awaited umen arrived at last to secure this place. He would know when it was time.

  "At least I hope to again see the Barkth," Hulagar sighed, "and then I shall be content. Perhaps it is as I fear, and I will have ridden upon the last circling. Then it will be your concern, my friend, for we will need your guidance of the Qar Qarth if we are ever to ride again.

  "We should go back to the ship," he said.

  Hulagar walked over to the small boat and climbed in. Tamuka walked up to the craft, jumped in, and grabbed hold of the oars. Pushing against the bottom, he edged the boat out into the river and started to paddle.

  "We were not made for water." He laughed softly as the boat spun around and on a ragged zigzag course started back to the Ogunquit.

  "I think it's time that we left," Jim Hinsen said quietly, looking around at the weary Cartha soldiers and Jamie's pirates gathered on the deck of the galley.

  "We've still got several hundred men spread out on the plains, and some of them are my lads," Jamie objected. "And you want to leave them behind?"

  "I think what we've got here is far more important," Hinsen snapped.

  He motioned to the midsection of the ship. Tied down and firmly secured rested the locomotive that had broken down near the Kennebec bridge and was left behind. The ship had a decidedly uneasy feel to it with so much weight riding above the waterline. It was going to be tricky bringing her home, but he could well imagine the reaction of the Merki when he presented them with such a thing to take apart and use. After thirty days of playing cat and mouse with Kindred, he knew the game was up. They had laid a secured line all the way to the bridge and even now were forcing track out on the other side. The last raid to try to delay them had been a disaster; Kindred had outsmarted him and had ambushes set up several miles out from the line. He had lost nearly fifty men in that one, and he'd be damned if he was going to be shot at and killed in the middle of some godforsaken tract of wasteland.