The Heretic

by David Drake

  “Yes, yes,” Eisenach murmured. “That’s just, that’s right.”

  Abel leaned forward again, now all understanding and compromise. “But Director Eisenach, we need that powder. We need the three bargeloads that were promised and another shipment—oh, let’s call it ten wagonloads—to bring you current. We need it to fight back, don’t you see? Surely you understand how that is also just and right. And how delivering those three barges and ten wagons would keep the barrel shards and those papyrus scrolls from traveling to Lindron, to the Captain of the Tabernacle Guard, or even to the Chief Prelate himself.”

  “I do see that,” Eisenach said, nodding his head furiously. “I do. But it’s very difficult.”

  “Oh?”

  “You see, they’ve been demanding more.”

  “Who?”

  “The thrice-damned Redlanders, that’s who! The Blaskoye!”

  “I see,” Abel said.

  “They’ve cleaned out our production for the past three months. We meet their demands, and then they want even more. I tell you, it’s—”

  “Barbaric?” Abel said.

  “Yes! They won’t let up. Won’t let us catch a breath in production. We’re in arrears to everybody, not just to Treville.”

  “That’s terrible,” Abel said.

  “So you see, we really don’t have your powder.”

  “Obviously not,” Abel said. “And yet, I think I see a solution.”

  “I wish you would tell it to me, then.”

  Abel nodded, and pushed his chair back a little more.

  Give the guy a moment to breathe, to let down his guard yet again, he thought.

  Good lad!

  “Let me tell you a story,” Abel said. “And I want you to correct me where I’m wrong, Director Eisenach, all right?”

  The other nodded.

  “I’m trying to imagine who’s really in charge around here. Is it the prelate?”

  “That drunken old fool? No!” said Eisenach.

  “I thought not,” Abel replied. “And his priests either spend a great deal of time . . . seeing to their own needs, or else they’re crazy. So that can’t be it. But now, what about the DMC?”

  “A thug,” Eisenach replied. “I saw to his appointment myself.” He chuckled.

  Abel nodded. “Yes, I thought so. Bought and paid for. A bully, but not too bright, eh?”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “So who is running Bruneberg and Cascade, I wondered to myself,” Abel said. “And the only answer I can come up with is—you, Director. You and the First Families.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘running,’ so much as—”

  “Oh, come now, Director, you’re much too modest. You are the lord of all you survey.”

  Eisenach blinked, thought for a moment.

  He’s almost figured out where this is going, said Raj. Almost, but not quite, the poor sod.

  “I suppose you could say I have certain influence.”

  “I’d say you have a deciding influence,” Abel replied. “And with that in mind, I have a proposition.”

  The director rubbed his chin. “All right. I’m listening.”

  “Take it from the Cascade arsenal.”

  “What? No, I—”

  “Think about it, Director. You have your agreements in place with the Blaskoye. Your DMC said it himself: they haven’t attacked Cascade District in twenty years. You don’t really need that gunpowder here, and we do. So give it to me to take back to Treville. Immediately.”

  “But that would take . . . Yes, I suppose it could be done. I could even get the military to pack it up themselves.”

  “And if the DMC objects?”

  “Him? You must be joking? I’d have him strangled and tossed out a Riverfront shithole.” Eisenach mused. “And you’re sure your father will not send the barrels if I do this?”

  “I’m pretty certain,” Abel said. “Like you, all he really wants is peace, commerce, and noninterference between districts.”

  Abel stood up, and Eisenach, as well, as if he were the one about to be dismissed—which he was.

  Abel spit on his hand. “Ten wagons to return with me tomorrow? I’ll meet them here on my way home. And the barges sent after to Garangipore.”

  “It will be done,” Eisenach said. “And your promise, as the son of your father?”

  “You have my word as a Scout and a Dashian,” Abel replied. “Nothing will be sent to Lindron if we see that gunpowder.”

  Eisenach spit on his own palm, and the two men shook hands.

  “I’m glad we can do business,” Eisenach said. “It’s so much more pleasant this way.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And would you mind releasing my assayer on your way out?” Eisenach said. “I’m going to put him in charge of your arrangements.”

  “No problem, friend director,” Abel answered. He bowed slightly, turned to leave, then called over his shoulder. “Besides, I’m fairly certain I’ll have need of that knife on a few Redlander necks. Maybe even the very ones that you need killed, as well.” He stalked to the door. “Nice doing business with you.”

  And then he was outside. When he extracted the knife from the wood, the assayer made a pleasant thunk as he fell to the ground.

  * * *

  While we must not underestimate Zentrum, we must also remember that he has set a difficult goal for the Land. Center had been lecturing for what seemed to Abel like hours. Days, even.

  Abel rode easily upon Spet, who shuffled forward at a slow pace. The return home had taken an additional six days due to the trail of ten gunpowder-filled wagons that he and Golitsin were shepherding back to the Hestinga garrison. A group of militiamen had accompanied them as guards, among them the two Scouts he had braced with his whip at the Cascade arsenal. Both had expressed a desire to transfer to Treville after they returned the empty wagons, and Abel had told them he would see what he could do about the matter.

  Center droned on with the lesson, which, though important, was not anything Abel didn’t already know: Zentrum wishes all possibility for scientific or political advance destroyed, and yet he cannot allow the barbarians to entirely obliterate the culture of the Valley, lest there no longer be any Stasis to maintain. There must be conquest and domination, but there must also be assimilation.

  You are talking about the deaths of thousands of people. Women raped, children spitted. Donts with their legs hacked off or forever broken.

  Not to mention the various forms of asphyxiation, excruciation, and sadistic torment the Blaskoye employ against their adult male enemies, Center replied dryly. The human toll is of no consequence to Zentrum.

  Nor to you.

  Nor to me, that is true, Center conceded. But for those who do care about such matters, at least for the moment our mutual interests align.

  Comforting to know a cold thing like you is looking out for my interests.

  Your taunts are pointless and misplaced, Center replied. I am as incapable of being insulted as is a rock beside the road.

  My taunts make me feel better. Anyway, go on.

  To achieve this balance I was speaking of, Zentrum needs the invasion to be slow and thorough rather than lightning quick. This will, of course, create even more suffering, and of a more agonizing nature. But it will also permit the invaders to be drawn into the local populace, to acquire some measure of local ways as they cement their conquest. And it will make them so weary of the battle that by the time they get to Lindron, they are ready for the compromise Zentrum will offer them: conquest and rule, but with Zentrum firmly in place as advisor.

  And that means he cannot allow the militia to collapse and lose its fight too soon, Raj put in. Zentrum will even encourage bravery and hard-fighting, and a degree of innovation, if he knows that in the end he can stamp it all out as the barbarians emerge triumphant.

  If we can anticipate his timing, we can disrupt him without giving away the game too soon—that there is active resistance tha
t’s aware of Zentrum’s ultimate aim. He will, sooner or later, arrive at this conclusion. He’s no idiot.

  The inflection points will be several innovation thresholds, both in technology and tactics, Center continued.

  And what am I supposed to do at these inflection points of yours?

  Easy, answered Raj. Ramp the innovation. Exploit every invention. Adopt new tactics for each advance.

  Why don’t you just tell me how to build all the things you’ve spoken of? Your laser cannons, your tactical nukes?

  You know the answer to that, lad.

  You need an industrial base. Abel recited the oft-repeated lesson wearily. Such devices don’t spring from the air by wish alone.

  Precisely, Center said. Zentrum remains powerful. He created the Land for his own preservation. All we have is you. For the moment.

  One heretic, trying to bring about a future nobody can hope for because they can’t even imagine it.

  You will have one advantage fairly soon, said Raj.

  And what’s that? You two, I suppose?

  Raj’s low and wicked laugh. Breech-loading rifles, he replied.

  * * *

  Abel had imagined a triumphal return and an understated but impressive parade through Hestinga with his wagons full of powder. Instead, a single rider met him a league from the western gate of Hestinga.

  It was one of the cadets, Holman, who had been preparing for a billet with the Regulars. He galloped up on dontback and reined his mount to a stop in a cloud of dust. Abel trotted up to meet him.

  “The commander sent me to find you,” Holman said through a fit of coughing.

  “Find me? I sent a flitter with news of our return. Don’t tell me it didn’t arrive?”

  “He knows you’re coming, and he knows what you’re bringing,” Holman said. “He sent me to tell you to get back as fast as possible with the powder—expend the pack animals if you have to, and even your own mounts.”

  “Why? What has happened?”

  “You haven’t yet heard?”

  “No,” Abel said, raising his voice, trying not to shout in frustration. “I have not. What is it?”

  “The Blaskoye are in the Valley,” said Holman. “Lilleheim has fallen.”

  PART THREE

  The Woman

  1

  “It was a massed attack, as you might expect from that lot,” said Joab. “But the occupation has been disciplined. That’s what bothers me.” They rode along the winding road that led from Hestinga to Lilleheim. On their left, the northwest, were rice paddies irrigated by the elaborate system of rams of water-lifting cranes. The cranes with their woven baskets dotted the landscape to the horizon. To the right, as the ground rose to the southeast, were flax, barley, and wheat fields, which did not require the regular flooding of the rice paddies. Abel knew these fields continued all the way to, and partially up, the Escarpment, which rose, filling the horizon, about a half-league away. “They took the town and stayed in place. I would have expected them to sack the town, kill everyone they could find, and either retreat or keep moving down the road to Hestinga. Instead, they’ve stayed in position and systematically burned every wooden structure in the town. The sky has been black with smoke from the thatching for three days. You can see it from here.” He pointed to a black plume to the north wafting lazily upward, as if it were merely the smoke from some enormous cookfire chimney. “The Scouts report that each morning they crucify a new set of village elders outside the southern gate, the one that faces Hestinga.”

  “They want us to see it,” Abel said. “It’s a taunt.”

  “Clearly,” his father replied. “And they want to enrage us. They’re succeeding. Horst Danziger was a good friend of mine, and he was nailed up with yesterday’s group of cross hangers. Your Sergeant Kruso managed to put a shot in his forehead before noon, blessed-be.”

  “Did he? Good man.” Abel remembered Danziger slightly. Joab had many friends for someone who worked as hard as his father did, and it was hard to keep track. Abel knew that Joab considered his cultivation of the smart and useful citizens to be part of his job. “Horst was that big redheaded farmer who used to drink with you at that wine stall in the market you like, wasn’t he?”

  “When he was in town on deliveries.”

  “That’s right, he was the oil maker. He worked those olive orchards up the Escarpment above the village, didn’t he?”

  “Bought them played out and managed to squeeze value from them despite it,” Joab said. “Man after my own heart.” Joab spat into the sand, as if to rid his mouth of a bad taste. “They nailed him to one of his own uprooted trees.”

  “Too bad,” Abel said.

  “I’m going to burn the Blaskoye bastard who did it at the stake when I catch him,” Joab said matter-of-factly. “And I’m going to use Horst’s oil to do it with.”

  “Do you think they are counting on angering you? It could be a feint, to get you out of Hestinga.”

  Or an ambush, said Raj.

  Unlikely at this juncture, although that is the ultimate strategy the Blaskoye will have to employ when their true invasion begins.

  This isn’t a real invasion?

  It is a reconnaissance in force. A major raid, to be sure.

  Observe:

  Again he is on the flyer, soaring up, up, and then leveling out. Toward the north, toward the rising smoke of the burning village. Then through it. Spots of red raging light below, the fires so large they are visible even in the harsh light of the sun through the Land’s cloudless sky.

  My deductions from reports and from analysis of the terrain indicates a force of approximately eight hundred Redlanders to take the village and do the sort of damage we have seen.

  Observe:

  Now past the burning town, and up, up toward the Escarpment and the Lilleheim Trail, the footpath that led up through terraced fields to the crest of the Escarpment wall. Up and over this crest and—

  Into the Redlands. And now the terrain becomes abstracted as Abel flies higher and faster. Labels appear. Oasis One. Oasis Two. Blaskoye strongholds along the dry gulch known as the Graben.

  In wetter geologic times, the Graben was once a stream itself, a tributary of the River, said Center. Now all that are left are the wet spots. And of course the Blaskoye have found them, for they mean life itself in the Redlands.

  Now down, down toward a spot of green in the sea of red. The Great Oasis—

  Which seemed to be surrounded by a system of straight lines, like scoremarks in the desert floor. Only when Abel was nearer did he see them for what they were. Corral fences. Campgrounds delineated. Order. Discipline. Numbers.

  A huge force of Redlanders was gathered, was being gathered, for he saw more streaming in from outlying lands, many on dak-drawn wagons, some on donts, hundreds more walking.

  So Lilleheim is just the tip of the spear.

  Correct. Aimed at Treville. At your father, specifically. He is being targeted for his competency and the strength of the Treville Militia and Scouts. He holds the center. If Treville District falls, the Land will be open from north to south.

  And if Treville holds firm?

  Lindron is too well protected by the Tabernacle Guard, and the Valley too wide at that point for Blaskoye tactics, Raj said, his tone musing. An invasion from the north sweeping down the Valley, I’d suspect.

  That is a ninety-two point four percent probability.

  And if Treville falls?

  Observe:

  Terror in his veins, hard breathing. Running, running on his own two legs, his dont slain somewhere behind him in the retreat.

  Make the River. Maybe a chance to make a stand. Or, if not, boats. An escape to the east. Anything besides this perpetual clash and retreat, clash and retreat—

  But tired, so tired. The pounding of the thickened hoofpads of the Blaskoye mounts behind him thunderous, making it so hard to think—

  And then, they are in front of him. A line of donts, with riders in flowing blue and
white garb, their faces hidden behind turban windings. Only their eyes shining. Those hard, Redlander eyes watching him.

  Rifles raised.

  And he running toward them, for he cannot turn, cannot run back, or his pursuers will be upon him.

  How did the others get in front of him, cut him off from the River?

  And then he looks up, checks the sun in the sky. And knows.

  He has become confused, somewhere in the dust behind. He has ever so slowly made an erroneous turn. And not only him, but the men he leads. The two hundred. The survivors. The final muster after the devastation at Garangipore.

  They were to escape and begin the guerilla harassment.

  They were to be the unvanquished.

  And now a simple mistake.

  So easy to do in his exhaustion.

  So costly. So entirely his own fault.

  He has slowly turned, somehow gotten off course. Has allowed his terror and tiredness to join the chase. He has allowed himself and his command to run right into the enemy’s advancing, encircling front lines.

  The Blaskoye rifles crackle.

  We were to be the unvanquished.

  The Redlanders reload. He raises his own weapon, but of course he is long out of caps and powder. Only bayonets remain, and the enemy will never allow him, allow any of his band, to get within range to use those.

  The Blaskoye rifles crackle yet again.

  And he is down, taken in the hip and shoulder. He has seen such wounds. He knows he will be a long time dying.

  A long time to burn with the certain knowledge.

  He is forever among not the unvanquished, but the vanquished.

  * * *

  Abel started in his saddle, almost sending his mount skittering. Joab, who was considering Abel’s previous statement, didn’t seem to notice.

  “I believe it is a test,” Joab said, nodding to himself. “Yes. They wish to gauge our response so they will know what to expect the next time. And the next.”

  Good head on his shoulders, that man, said Raj with an approving growl.