“Warmaster?” Lieutenant Rash’koi called. He gestured toward the enemy, miming a bowshot.
“The fourth trebuchet, someone fire the sappers’ charge!” she shouted. Corporal Hu’dakai and three other archers and two cavalry reversed their flight and took a position thirty meters from the still-standing siege engine. The gunpowder charge was strapped to the bottom of the main support hinge a dozen meters above the beach, its wick wound around the upper end of the nearest support beam, which still gleamed with flammable oil.
“Rash’koi, it is too risky! If we do not kill every horse and man at both ends, they will slay us all, every one, as fast as they can run to the river! You have no idea what that stuff can do! Go! Go to the boats!”
Two of the fire-arrows launched by Hu’dakai’s team shattered their flasks of oil on the beach behind the trebuchet. The two teams of O’dai horses were within thirty meters of the shoreline, one upriver and one down. Two more incendiaries lofted - one a clean miss, and one broke against the beam, but too low to ignite the fuse. Inshore, out on the plain, the disturbance in the grass had disappeared - probably, Kirrah realized with a terrible insight, because the O’dai were now pulling it taut and the center of its length no longer dragged along the ground cover. She could see one team pulling to a halt at the water’s edge a hundred meters upstream.
One more shot, there! The fire arrow burst directly on the hinge, dripping burning oil onto the charge’s fuse. The fuse began to sputter and spark. Corporal Hu’dakai turned to salute, and the archer next to him shouted and fell, blood suddenly gouting from his severed thighs. The corporal and one of the two other archers jumped toward the water, as the remaining bowman turned to stare at his fellow writhing on the ground beside his detached legs. Then the second man’s bow snapped above his hand. His eyes widened and his free hand swung up as though to swat at something on his chest. But even as his arm lifted, his hand came away cleanly from his forearm and slapped him almost comically on the face, and fell back to land at his feet.
“No!” Kirrah screamed. Stunned, the man leaned forward reflexively to pick up the severed hand, and his head and upper chest slid horribly away from his lower body, blood spraying in all directions. The nearest cavalryman shouted a warning and swung his sword through the air near where the man had fallen. His swing struck nothing tangible, but to his obvious shock, ten centimeters fell soundlessly from the end of his heavy blade.
“Back!” Kirrah screamed again. The man’s horse suddenly reared, and more blood spurted as both the animal’s front legs parted cleanly, one above and one just below the knee. Desperately the man stood in his stirrups and lunged up and out, rolling in the air and landing apparently whole on the soft sand. Probably on the wrong side of the nanowire, Kirrah realized with a sick dread. The horse fell onto both stumps, then collapsed as its head, with a bloody wedge of neck attached, rolled half a meter away. The second horseman was backing slowly away from the carnage.
“On your life, don’t move!” Kirrah ordered. A hundred meters down the beach, she could see one of the team of O’dai horsemen standing at the water’s edge, laughing and shaking the gray ring left and right on its harness.
“When I light up the wire, come over or under, then run for the beach!” Kirrah set her beamer to continuous cutting and full power, and flicked its beam rapidly up and down through an arc just to the right of the man. At each flick, the beam intersected with the nanowire, which flashed a nearly-invisible pale yellow along its entire two hundred meter length. Kirrah jumped to see how close it was, barely half a meter from her right shoulder. The thoroughly rattled cavalryman rolled quickly under the flickering apparition, and everyone made for the water. Kirrah turned and almost collided with Irshe who was reaching to her. The demolition charge chose that moment to explode violently, two of the large wooden trebuchet beams falling toward the water and two falling inland. As the latter two dropped onto the taut nanowire, each heavy timber parted into two neatly severed pieces. Irshe practically carried her to the nearest steamship in his haste.
That evening, a somber war council was in progress in the paneled octagonal conference room in the southwest corner of the palace.
“On behalf of Talam, Kirrah Warmaster, you do not need to apologize for your victory. You had no way to anticipate the Kruss weapon.”
“I know, Lord Tsano, and I know they could have given far worse weapons to the O’dai. In fact the nanowire is not designed to be a weapon at all. It is a construction material, like beams or bricks, used by both Kruss and Regnum. It only cuts because it is thinner than the edge of a sharp razor.”
“What would one possibly construct, using such a terrible material?” asked Delima shu'Maakael, the Guildmaster. “Would not everyone be at risk?”
“It must be handled carefully, as many of you have seen earlier today. But with the proper tools and techniques, it can be used and contained safely. It is dangerous because it is so thin and so strong, exactly the same reasons that make it so useful. A cable woven of that material can lift a fully laden ship so high into the sky that it does not fall back to earth. This is how, if you chose someday to explore the stars, you will leave your world.”
“How do the O’dai wield it without harm? My man’s sword…” Major Doi’tam gestured to the ruined weapon lying on the conference table, its three-centimeter width of tempered, folded carbon steel still bright and smooth where it was severed.
“The Kruss have given them a spool and a handle, both made of a material that contains the same substance as the nanowire, and wrapped in a fine mesh of nanowire. It is very difficult to manufacture even for my world, and quite beyond our ability to make here.”
“So we have no defense against being cut to pieces if we take the field against our enemies again,” said Irshe. Ever quick to appreciate the tactical implications of new weapons…
“Irshe-ro’tachk is partly right,” Kirrah replied. “In the Regnum, there are solvents that would dissolve the nanowire in an instant. But here, now, we have nothing capable of stopping it from passing wherever it is pulled, including through the city’s stone walls.” Not a few of the faces around the table paled at that image. “But if we are forced back to the field, we can be alert to their tactics and detail a squad of archers to kill the men pulling the ends of the wire. If we do that, it could be just as dangerous for them as for us. No one can even see the stuff, and it cuts so finely one doesn’t even feel it hurt as his leg comes off.”
“What a terrible not-weapon,” Delima mused. “I can only wonder what you would consider a powerful, purpose-built weapon to be, and whether we shall have to experience it when your Reg’num and the Kruss are fighting on our world.”
“You are not the first to feel this fear, Delima. Both Kruss and Regnum, and many other worlds, belong to a greater organization, the Civilium. We have spoken of it in the past when we discussed trade. Since our greatest weapons can destroy whole worlds, the Civilium has very strict rules, and any world or empire of worlds that breaks them will be punished by all the other worlds. This does not mean we do not have wars, or do damage. But no living world has been destroyed, not for almost seven hundred years - sorry, for five hundred years of this world.
“I will not mislead you. The Kruss and the Regnum have been competitors for three hundred years, and fought a few wars over worlds and exploration rights and other less-tangible things. By siding with the Regnum you make enemies of the Kruss, but since they were already here, the alternative is to make slavemasters of them.”
“In this matter we trust you, Kirrah shu’Roehl.” Lord Tsano was the only Talamae present, in fact the only Talamae period, who was not obliged to address her as ‘Warmaster’ in formal circumstances. “But I have a question about the Kruss wire. Perhaps you could indulge an old blacksmith a moment.” At her nod and quick smile, the big man continued:
“We have seen what your beamer can do, against armor - even the Kruss’ armor. Why will it not simply sever such a wire that is so
fine it cannot even be seen?” Oh sure, thought Kirrah, just tell me the Talamae words for ‘Quantum superconductor’, and ‘Unidimensional virtual Bose-Einstein condensate’, and I’ll fill you right in…
“Ah, again I am at difficulty,” she temporized. “No offense, but the words do not exist in the Talamae language… let me try explaining this way. My not-sword throws heat and light. Whatever it strikes, a small part of it becomes hotter than the heart of the best forge-fire.” Actually, hotter than the surface of your sun, but that’s for later…
“But the nanowire is not only very strong and very thin. It has a special property, that every part of it is always at exactly the same temperature as every other part. In fact the wire doesn’t have true length as, say, a mooring rope does. It reacts as though it is all in one place.” Intelligent pale green eyes watched her closely as she struggled to explain the concepts she had grown up with.
“So when my not-sword sends heat, first, because the nanowire is so thin, it only absorbs a tiny part of what is sent. Second, that small amount of heat is spread instantly over the entire length of the wire, plus any other wire touching it, including the handles and spools wrapped with the wire. If I poured all the strength in my not-sword onto that one wire, I doubt I could make any part of it even too warm to touch. If one could touch it.”
“I am surprised to hear that it was not hot. From across the river, I could see it flash yellow in the sweep of your weapon, like a crack into the heart of a furnace.”
“My Lord Tsano is an excellent observer,” Kirrah replied. “But what you were seeing was a reflection of the light from my not-sword, not its heat. As well as conducting heat instantly,” and electricity, and phonons, and quantum states - but let’s not go there just now… “the nanowire also conducts light along its entire length. A tiny fraction of that light spills out, which I counted on to help our cavalryman cross it safely. Not that I have ever tried that before, it was just …all I could think of.”
“May I suggest we return to consider what we do about it, and about the O’dai,” said Armsmaster Opeth from across the table. “And may I add my respectful opinion to Lord Tsano’s, that Kirrah Warmaster cease blaming herself for our extremely light losses this day! Thirty-one soldiers was a very small cost for destroying the trebuchets, far smaller than we would have paid without you, and I estimate something close to a thousand O’dai are dead or out of action.”
“You are most generous, Armsmaster. I would be happier to receive your commendation, if two thirds of our losses were not due to my own blunders!” Kirrah’s voice rose and twisted painfully in her throat, her eyes stung and her hands gripped white-knuckled to the edge of the beautifully polished table in front of her. “Twenty men! Twenty families! Twenty deathsongs! All because I did not think to coordinate better between the sappers and the maneuvers of our forces! None of those men had the slightest idea the fuse was burning, or even what it meant!
“And the two lost at the very end! Why could I not have smashed their damned trebuchet from the ships! Or even the far shore! Whoever thought to bring field mortars around the lake to opposite that fifth trebuchet, that is the one you should be thanking!” Looks of baffled frustration were exchanged around the table at her outburst.
“Kirrah Warmaster.” The nearly-mild voice from Major Doi’tam startled her. He waited, meeting her eyes until she said:
“Yes, Fira'tachk. ”
“You asked me, once, whether your honor would suffice for me to serve you. I had thought you weak and boastful, but then I saw different, and I said yes. I was not wrong. Not one of us recognized the Kruss wire as a weapon. Your quick action is all that saved our entire company. No one, alive or dead, has any reason to blame you for today’s work. Every new weapon costs lives to learn. Thanks to you, our enemies paid a far higher cost than we did. We are all agreed on this, please hear us, or at least hear our experience.”
“You, you surprise me, Fira'tachk. You all surprise me. Because I can see that you are right.” Maybe later, I can feel it, too, just a little. Gods, this day hurts! She took a deep breath and returned to the job at hand.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I fear we are now at balance with the O’dai. From our steamships, we can smash any siege engines they bring within range of our walls or towers. But we cannot engage them on open ground, without risking our entire force to their nanowire. If I were their commander and saw us coming again, I would lay that wire down on the ground in front of us, invisible. Two men springing up from ambush on our flanks could slaughter half our army before we knew it. And if they have just two spools of it, they could trap and cut down any force we put in the field.
“In our favor, they cannot get it close enough to our walls without being seen and killed by archers on the towers. Which I am increasing to four hundred men, four shifts. If they stay where they are, they are no great problem for us, and we can harass them as we did the Wrth. They have chosen to camp where they thought it would be convenient for their trebuchets, but their position looks to me to be very difficult to defend from raids. I wonder whether their commander has chosen wisely.”
Lord Tsano thought for a moment and said: “I suspect they may be commanded by one Prince Paedako, a middle son of the O’dai King Oka’sse. I have met the prince when he was a lad, and he was just as arrogant, stubborn and careless then as whoever leads these. Also I recall Prince Paedako is known to imagine himself a mighty warrior. Leading the ‘siege of Talam’ would be the kind of assignment he would seek, for personal glory. Although I am surprised his father the King would give it to him. This army is a large investment to risk on an untested commander.”
“It is good to know the name of one’s enemy,” Kirrah replied. “It is likely the Kruss helped Oka’sse make this mistake. It would suit them well, if both O’dai and we bleed together. Perhaps we can tempt the O’dai into more mistakes.
“Now, what do we need to do immediately? Yes, Irshe?”
“Warmaster, they will need to bring supplies a long distance overland. They may even seek to replace their lost trebuchets. We should think about how to raid their supply lines, many doi’la back towards their country. A different place each time, so they cannot prepare for us.”
“Good idea, Irshe-ro’tachk. Ask Rash’koi-sana'tachk to see to it. And tell him I want Hu'dakai-dakka'tachk to be one of his raiders. In fact the more he has, who have seen the nanowire in action, the safer they will be from attack by it. And make sure each team has at least one sapper. Also I think the Realm would be served by promoting Hu’dakai to the rank of ro’tachk. He has shown quick thinking and initiative several times in my view.” Irshe nodded at each point, making careful mental notes. “Yes, Armsmaster?”
“I wonder, Warmaster. If the O’dai are where you want them now, in convenient sight of the city walls, might it be prudent to leave them untroubled? If we raid them, we may drive them off, but we lose oversight of them. We can do that any time we wish, but we cannot order them back to that nice festival-grounds they have chosen, bounded by water on three sides.” Some of these people could teach strategy at the Regnum War Academy. Kirrah nodded with appreciation.
“Agreed, Opeth. No major raids for now. But I still want them to lose a few men every day. Or every night. It could be just a few silent bodkinpoints from small boats. It’s bad for morale. Their morale.
“Now, what is the best way to break their siege? Will they parley now? Do we starve them out? Pick them to death a few at a time? Invade their homeland?” Startled looks, as the assembled military wisdom of Talam wondered whether to fear their terrible new Warmaster was jesting, or fear that she was not. The meeting got down to serious planning.
Chapter 31 (Landing plus one hundred twenty): Interlude
“A man sees a neighbor robbed and beaten by someone stronger, and wonders whether to get involved. Whatever he decides, he is voting for his own future.” - Artemis Arondai, late 21st century prophet and author, Terra.
In a stone cell deep und
er the old palace, Xenomanipulator Second Class Lssghagk raised his muzzle to the sound of his door being opened. His outer door. Damn that Regnum whelp, she’d had him chained to the wall, naked, like prey. And with two iron doors barring the way to the throat of his guards, and freedom. Like an air lock, only one door could be opened at a time, and the Regnum female had made it excruciatingly clear what would happen to his other foot if he managed to kill a guard and not make it to freedom.
Which slow-meat was this one? It was not mealtime… the food had been ample if not satisfying, but how he longed to bury his muzzle in the belly of a living, thrashing prey. Ah yes, the tall white one with the long black head fur. After many repetitions and much boredom, one began to notice small differences in these look-alike creatures. So ugly, so weak and slow. He should be the one on the outside of this cage, visiting them for his mealtimes. What was it… no, this was a female… what was she waiting for?
Oh, right. She was the ‘healer’ - what an odd concept. Still, it did feel good, her hands moving over the aching, growing bud of the new foot. When the Domination owned this planet, this practice would bear looking at. Perhaps he would keep a few such in his own household. And this was a smart one, she never approached within reach of his chain, until he extended it to the limit himself and put his good ankle willingly in the second shackle bolted to the stone floor. Only when he could not move more than a toe’s breadth did she begin her work. Lssghagk leaned back and allowed the pleasant sensations to begin washing over him.
Kirrah leaned back in her chair and took a sip of fruit juice from the mug on her desk. The air was still and the day promised to be hot. Through the open window on the palace’s second floor, the sounds of small birds wafted. Two of the tiny green and gray musical avians were fluttering in and out, boldly picking crumbs from a tray of leftover breakfast pastries. The mid-morning sun spilled into her office and across the piles of paper and the traditional inscribed wood tablets she had already absorbed, and the tidier but larger stack of documents still awaiting her attention.
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