War World Discovery

by John F. Carr

  Before Chuluun could speak, Bataar grinned up at him. “With my plans and your leadership, we are out. Our people will be free on the steppes once again.”

  “And now what, you crazy old man? Where are these steppes? What do we do next?” Chuluun demanded.

  “We must have supplies. More horses, wagons with food, tents.”

  “I have led our people out of the camp. But you can lead them to the steppes yourself. I must find Tuya.”

  “Our work is not finished. We must raid the mining camp now, before the patrols gather reinforcements from Redemption and other Anaconda mining camps. They expect us to flee. Now is the time to attack and take what we need.”

  “You can lead them.” Chuluun lowered his voice. “I want the stone now. When I find Tuya, we will go to Redemption before sunrise. With the stone as collateral, we will return to Earth on the next ore transport. Old man, this life on the Haven steppes is your dream, not mine. You should lead our people to the steppes, not me.”

  “Ah, yes, you want the stone. Of course you do. Don’t we all?” Bataar gave him a hard look, but he slipped the loop of chain over his head and drew the steel box from his shirt. He opened it to show its contents.

  Chuluun leaned down close. Again, the shimmer stone seemed to pulse in his vision, as it picked up the tiniest hints of reflected light from the fire behind Bataar. Chuluun took the steel box and closed it, then slipped the chain around his own neck. “So you will lead our people on this raid. And I will find Tuya.”

  “I can tell you where to find her,” said Bataar. “During the confusion outside the women’s barracks, just before I mounted up, I saw her shoved back inside. The door was slammed shut again. Then we had to ride.”

  “What?” Enraged, Chuluun grabbed Bataar’s broad shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Bataar shoved his hands away. “We must raid the camp now. Think of those patrols that returned and chased us away! Most of them will rest for the night, and their mounts will be waiting for us to take. You will lead us and you will free Tuya.”

  “Old man, you should have told me!” Chuluun glared at his white-haired, white-bearded mentor. “All right, then, we must find as many men as we can put on horseback or muskylope. Other men will ride double so they can drive the wagons and ride the other horses we will take from the camp. We will ride fast, so any men left on foot must wait here. The wounded must wait here or they will slow us down.”

  “Ah! So you will lead us on this raid? Right now?”

  “Of course, you crazy old man! I will go to free Tuya.”

  “Good!” Bataar gave him a grim smile. “In that case, I will tell you: I’m the one who shoved her back inside the barracks.”

  “What?” Furious, Chuluun swung his fist into Bataar’s jaw, driving the old man to the ground.

  Other men pushed between them. Two men lifted Bataar to his feet.

  Bataar just looked into Chuluun’s eyes. “Let’s ride!”

  Boiling with anger, Chuluun rode at the head of his mounted men at a walk, to keep the hoofbeats quiet. He would take out his rage on the guards, not the wily old man who had set this breakout in motion. Bataar, on another horse, stayed at his right, back just a few steps.

  Deep into the long Haven night, Chuluun drew up when he could see the place where one of Bataar’s explosions had breeched the perimeter. Set high in the fence, the explosive had torn away the barbed wire but left the ground nearly untouched, so horses and wagons could move through the open space. It was roughly wide enough for six horses across.

  The miners had shot out some of the lights in their escape, but many remained. In the faintest edges of the light, Chuluun saw a small mounted patrol of sentries, numbering only about ten men, on their horses and muskylopes near the breech. They looked listless and bored, certainly assigned to this duty only until a work crew could fix the fence. None of them seemed alert or worried that the fleeing miners might now be angry raiders ready to return so soon.

  This time Chuluun did not want to shout and alert the small patrol. He simply held his saber aloft for a long moment, the signal for the men behind him to be ready. Then he kicked his mount and held the saber forward, charging without a word.

  As his mount thundered toward the breech, he felt again the great excitement of riding across the steppes at home in Dongbei, in the re-enactments—but this time, the attack was real, and Tuya remained a prisoner.

  Behind him, shouts and rifle cracks sounded from the men. As he rode at a gallop, he saw the startled sentries whirl toward the sound. With a few scattered rifle shots in return, they wheeled their mounts and fled.

  Chuluun led the way through the opening in the fence, aware of bullets whizzing past him from the guard towers. He rode for the women’s barracks. Most of the men would spread out for the stables and supply warehouse. Some would load and hitch wagons, while others defended them.

  Resistance was surprisingly light.

  “Where is everyone?” Chuluun shouted, as he reined in.

  “We caught them all off guard,” Bataar called back, laughing. “Many are dead. Maybe the others ran away to Redemption.”

  Chuluun jumped to the ground as Bataar drew up behind him. While Chuluun struggled to slide open the bar once again, Bataar turned his mount and sent covering fire at the guard towers. Other men joined Chuluun and they opened the barracks door.

  This time the women who had not escaped before did not come running out. When Chuluun stepped inside, he found them huddled at their bunks, waiting to see who was entering.

  “Chuluun!” Tuya cried out. She ran to him, already wearing her thick coat, with her small booted feet thumping on the plank floor and two long braids of black hair dancing behind her.

  The other women hurried forward, too, rushing past them to the outside.

  Chuluun embraced Tuya, lifting her off the ground for just a moment. “We must hurry. Come on!” With one arm around her, he jogged out of the barracks.

  Near the door, Bataar was still turning on his mount and shooting his rifle at the towers.

  Chuluun lifted Tuya onto his mount and then jumped up behind her. Other men had followed him, and they drew the women away with them. At a trot, he rode for the warehouse. They met no resistance on the way.

  Even the towers, with spotlights still shining down, had gone quiet. The guards who been shooting from them were either dead or long gone.

  Six wagons had been hitched. Some men threw supplies into the back as others stood guard. Men who had ridden double had found more horses and muskylopes in the stables. The raiding party gathered, preparing to leave.

  “The guards abandoned the camp,” Chuluun said to Bataar. Still on the roan mare, he held his arms around Tuya, clutching the reins and his saber, while she held the rifle. “But I expected to find more horses and muskylopes. I’m worried about a trap. Where are they?”

  “They must have gone for reinforcements and ammunition in Redemption,” said Bataar. “More patrols will come from nearby camps to help out. At first light, they will start their pursuit, but some of them may be watching the road into town. So we must avoid the main gate.”

  “We’ll send scouts,” said Chuluun. “They can find the safest route away from here.”

  “Don’t waste time. The wagons will slow us down as it is.”

  Chuluun nodded, seeing the old man’s wisdom. “We’ll go out the way we came in. The wagons can go overland through the break in the fence. But what about the journey to the steppes? Only you know the way. Can the wagons travel where we have to go?”

  “The way is marked,” said Bataar. “The time has come to tell you. From the place where I dug the fire pit, I have marked blazes on the trees. I spent more than a year marking the way. We will rest near the fire and go at first light. The wagons must go slowly in some places, but they will go.”

  And you will lead, Chuluun thought to himself. Once the raiding party was out of the breech in the fence, he would slip away in the darkness wi
th Tuya and ride for Redemption. He would travel overland to avoid any guards and slip into the spaceport to dicker for a ride back to Earth for both of them. Somehow, somewhere, among the con artists, thieves, and company rats in the town, he would find someone who would make the deal he wanted. For a moment, he touched the steel box through his shirt.

  Chuluun called for the men to hurry, but he knew he had to be the last to leave. As each wagon was loaded, men and women who knew how to drive a team started out the way. Some riders trotted along each wagon as an escort. Chuluun ordered most of the raiding party to wait. They would act as a rear guard.

  At last, when the final wagon began to roll, Chuluun waved his saber, sending the rear guard into motion after them. Chuluun and Tuya, with Bataar riding alongside, took up the end of the column.

  While many riders turned on their mounts to watch the camp behind them with wary eyes, they followed the last wagon through the opening in the fence. Chuluun looked into the darkness, wondering where he might slip away from the other riders. First he planned simply to trot forward alongside them, leaving Bataar behind in the crowd. At some point, then, he would drift off to one side with the darkness as cover. Before anyone knew he was gone, he would be riding with Tuya for Redemption and a new life.

  The loud crackling of gunfire rose up on his left. Small lights, seeming to float in the air, appeared on both sides. Many hoofbeats, now faint, grew louder.

  “Torches,” said Bataar. “They’re coming!”

  “Wagons forward!” Chuluun shouted. He wished he could rise up in stirrups, but of course he was still riding bareback. “Wagons, go! Escort riders, go!”

  Bataar shouted the orders again and again, always in Chuluun’s name. Farther ahead, other men called out, sending the orders up the line.

  Chuluun realized the guards were closing a trap after all. The guards had not pulled back to Redemption. After the fugitive miners had returned on their raid, the guards had been withdrawn out the front gate to circle back and ambush their quarry. The wagons, supplies, and mounts had been left in the camp as bait.

  The Anaconda commander was not a fool; he had allowed the wagons and escorts to pass, knowing they could be caught later. Instead, the guards, at nearly full strength, had waited for the rear guard, made up of the bulk of fighting men who posed the only true danger.

  “Riders, follow me!” Aware that he was still visible where the distant light from the towers faded into the night, Chuluun swung his saber high. “To the left!”

  Chuluun charged forward, his arms still around Tuya. The tough young daughter of Dongbei leaned to the right and shouldered the rifle. She began firing.

  The torches, nearly upon them, gave them excellent targets.

  Just behind them, Bataar whooped and fired his rifle as he rode.

  In moments they had closed with the guards, who were shooting both rifles and side arms. Some held torches aloft in one hand with the reins, and guns or swords in the other. As the horses whinnied in the torchlight and dancing shadows, Chuluun swung his saber and felt it connect with a man who screamed. Riders behind him, some using hoes and shovels as hand weapons, shouted and clashed with the guards.

  As Chuluun fought to control his mount, Tuya fired blindly, point-blank into the shadows before them. Chuluun slashed with his saber, sometimes striking an enemy and often missing in the stumbling and shifting of the horses. Near him, Bataar fired with his rifle again and again.

  Chuluun could feel, rather than see, that he and his riders were slowly being forced back by sheer numbers. They were falling back into the light, back through the opening in the fence. Tuya stopped to reload and Chuluun used his saber to knock aside the barrel of a guard’s rifle pointed just a few feet from her. Then he ran through the guard who had dared to try shooting her.

  As Chuluun, Bataar, and their men were pushed into the faint light, they became specific targets instead of vague shadows. The bullets whizzed closer, and increased in number. Around him, more of the miners fell to bullets.

  “Yaah!” Bataar yelled, swinging a sword he had acquired during the fight. With a deft backhand stroke, he slashed the throat of a guard, then reached out and yanked him from the saddle to let him fall to the ground. “Chuluun! Here!”

  Chuluun grabbed the bridle of the free mount and took the rifle from Tuya. He held his horse steady as Tuya leaned toward the other horse and then flung herself into a kind of crouch onto its back. She gathered the reins and settled into the saddle, too short to reach the stirrups with her feet. Then she drew up to Chuluun, her eyes glittering in the light as he handed her the rifle.

  However, the miners had been forced back again, with even more of their own falling to rifle shots or sabers. Now most of them were in the light, back onto the compound grounds. They made easier targets than ever.

  Suddenly a newly arrived patrol of mounted guards poured through the fence breech on Chuluun’s left. They now outnumbered the remaining miners and came on fast. Chuluun’s rear guard was blocked from escape through the fence breech. Flight back through the camp and out the front gate might work for some, but many would be shot down from behind.

  Tuya drew up next to Chuluun. “I would rather die out here than go back,” she called to him. “What shall we do?”

  Chuluun was no leader. He was not a khan. Truly, he had no idea what to do.

  As the guards formed up ahead of them, preparing to charge, Chuluun pulled the steel box out of his shirt and opened it all the way. The shimmer stone pulsed in the faint light as they both stared at it.

  “A shimmer stone,” Tuya said breathily. She leaned forward, gazing at it.

  “It will buy us luxury for the rest of our lives,” said Chuluun. “We must take it to Redemption and make the jump back to Earth. We must flee.”

  “What luxury?” Tuya asked innocently, looking up from the stone into his eyes. “Freedom back on the steppes of Dongbei?”

  Startled, he gazed back at her. He remembered the wild, wonderful freedom of riding across the steppes beneath the open sky. When he was toiling deep in the mines, he had often dreamed of taking two strong mounts out on the steppes with Tuya, for the sheer joy of riding together at a full gallop. That was the luxury he sought deep in his soul.

  Suddenly a mounted guard rode at them at a canter, and aimed his rifle at Tuya.

  Before Chuluun or Tuya could react, the short, blocky form of Bataar drove his mount forward. The rifle cracked, but Bataar’s sword slashed across the guard’s chest, and the guard fell from his muskylope. Bataar hit the ground and rolled.

  Chuluun rode up to protect his fallen mentor. Without thought, without doubt, he held up the steel box in both hands, high over head. “See it! See it!” He moved it so the light from the distant towers caught it.

  The men in the first ranks of the guards stopped and stared first. Then even the men in the rear lines looked up. One by one, the fighting men drew apart to stare at the pulsing light in the steel box over Chuluun’s head. In a few moments, no one was moving.

  Tuya slipped from her horse and tried to lift Bataar. Another man jumped to her aid, and they lifted him face-down across the withers of her mount. She swung back up into the saddle.

  “You want it?” Chuluun shouted. “You want it? You know you want it!” He took the shimmer stone in one hand. Then he reared back and threw it as high and far as he could above the open space dividing the two sides, toward the guards. The shimmer stone glittered through the light from the towers.

  The shiny, pulsing stone seemed to fly slowly through the thin air, arcing and glistening in the faint light. Then, in the far end of its arc, it began to descend.

  With screams and shouts, the mass of guards rode after it.

  Chuluun kicked his mount. “To the steppes!” Chuluun shouted. “Chuluun Khan commands you—to the steppes!”

  “Chuluun Khan! Chuluun Khan!” The men took up the chant once again.

  With Tuya bringing Bataar, they cantered through the fence breech one
more time. Some of the miners undoubtedly chased the shimmer stone also, he supposed, but he heard the hoofbeats of many others following him.

  Soon they entered the safety of darkness and rode on, with no one in pursuit.

  *

  *

  *

  By the time dawn began to glow in the sky, Chuluun, Tuya, and the remainder of their rear guard finally had caught up with the last wagon in the column. The wagons had slowed, as Bataar had predicted, and the final wagon had been forced to stop and wait for those ahead.

  Chuluun slipped from his mount and stepped up to Bataar, as he lay across Tuya’s horse. “Is he alive?”

  “He is still breathing,” said Tuya. “He does not have long to live. Chuluun, he took the rifle bullet for me.”

  “Yes.” Chuluun drew the stocky old man down into arms and carried him to the back of the last wagon. Two men unhooked the back wall of the wagon and took out bags of grain to make room. Tuya dismounted and joined them. Chuluun laid the old man down at the back of the wagon.

  The white-haired, white-bearded man opened his eyes and spoke in a dry rasp. “I saw it, Chuluun Khan. I saw the stone fly through the air.”

  Chuluun nodded. “Crazy old man,” he said quietly.

  “You are truly Chuluun Khan, a leader of men. You will lead our people to the steppes by the trail I blazed?”

  “I will.”

  “Someday the story will be told by our grandchildren’s grandchildren,” said Bataar. “The story of a new tribe of free hunters and herders—yes, and farmers, too. The story of Chuluun, first khan of the steppes.”

  “No,” Chuluun said gently. “They will tell the story of Bataar, son of Timur, the first khan of the steppes. I will see to it.” He drew himself up, not for himself but for Bataar. “I—Chuluun Khan, second khan of the steppes—I will see to it.”

  Tuya clutched Chuluun’s arm, not fully understanding, but understanding enough.

  Bataar looked at him for a long moment. “What is a joke for a cat will be death for a mouse,” he said, quoting an old Mongol proverb. He closed his eyes. His breaths grew faint and finally stopped.