by David Drake
Behold the Past before the Past:
He is soaring again, farther up the River, to it source. Buildings as tall as mountains. Men dwelling in them, walking among them. Strange animals whizzing to and fro. No, these are the machines of men. Men who are convinced they are at the apex of civilization. Nishterlaub, nishterlaub everywhere.
Pride.
Arrogance.
Imbalance.
They deserved what they got.
Collapse. Ruin.
He can hear the screams as the buildings fall down around them, as all they knew crumbles to ruin in ten blinks of the eye.
From this egotistical height of technological wonder to eating manflesh in one generation. This is the state from which I raised you humans. All of you. Do you see what heresy breeds?
Yes, Lord.
The desires of men are like the River at flood. They must be regulated and contained. At times the Land must burn so that civilization can be renewed. Do you understand, Abel Dashian?
Yes, Lord. The Blood Winds. They are a part of your will, as are all things.
Better that thousands die than civilization fall into the hungry darkness again.
Yes, Lord.
There are more important things than winning a battle—or even a war.
“I repent of all I have done contrary to your will, Lord Zentrum. You have raised me from nothing. All praise is yours. I should never have touched the breechloaders. I should have killed the priest with my own hands. From this day forward, I will accept defeat before heresy.”
You have learned, Abel Dashian. That is well.
“You have shown me. I never knew. I never knew.” He felt tears welling in his eyes. His whole being resounded with anguish at his shortcomings, with ardor for his newfound convictions. “May your will be done now and forever. Alaha Zentrum!”
He stumbled back as he was released from the crystalline wall and his bond with Zentrum.
You are acceptable in my sight, Abel Dashian. You may go now.
“Thank you, Lord.”
A low bow.
Then—
Something inside him is quivering, something being born. What is this?
What’s happening to me?
I am—
Not me.
Not this quivering, frightened me. No!
I am—
Someone else.
Something else.
The new man. The second coming of knowledge.
Welcome back, lad, Raj said. Give it a moment and the rest will flow into you.
But I…but the Lord Zentrum…
Zentrum is not God, Abel.
You dare…you dare…
And then he really was back, reconstituted. He was standing at the doorway, breathing hard.
I…believed. You made me totally believe all of it, all the bullshit. It was so…
Demeaning.
Yes.
Dehumanizing.
Yes, that, too.
Nasty.
What Raj said was true. But moments before he had completely believed every word from Zentrum.
How can I know you are not lying to me, too? Maybe you’re all lying, and the truth is something entirely different.
You’ve asked the question before, and we’ve given you the only answer we have.
Choose the truth that will most help the people of my world survive.
That’s right. It’s the only answer we can give you. Kind of refreshing after listening to all that nonsense from a Mark XV computer that thinks it’s God, no?
I guess.
There is one thing Zentrum is right about, though. War is a means, never an end in itself. Forget that, and you’re doomed to repeat the cycle of destruction over and over again.
Wonderful. Can we get the cold hell out of here, General?
Aye, we can. And welcome to high command. You’re about to be the DMC of Cascade.
2
One year later
Cascade District
473 Post Tercium
The stockade stank of sweat tinged with the iron tang of blood. The Cascade Scouts looked fearful in their guise as Blaskoye. Some of the Firsts were still convinced that they were the captives of Redlanders. The more perceptive knew this was a lie, but, Abel hoped, had not yet discerned what it was he and the Scouts intended to do with them.
Good. They’ll be more pliable that way.
It was night, but Abel knew the real Blaskoye were gathering to the west. To the east, in uneasy alliance with the Redlanders, the Cascade militia was camped. All told he figured he faced a thousand warriors, including the women and children the Blaskoye sometimes brought to war as auxiliaries, and sometimes as fighters when needed.
The Cascade Regulars were nowhere to be found. They would stand back until the matter was decided one way or another. Abel might curse them for their fickleness—they were supposed to be under his command, after all—but he was glad not to be facing their numbers, all the same. He assumed they’d taken themselves across the River until the fighting was over. Abel swore that after this was over, he would make it his solemn mission to turn them into a real fighting force. At present they were little more than a lackadaisical police force or worse—an armed gang of protection racketeers.
So he had his Cascade Scouts, about three hundred of them, against the district militia—rabble bought and paid for by the oligarchs—and against a thousand Blaskoye. Even though the militia was better armed than the Redlanders, he was much more worried about the Blaskoye.
Deal with them, and the militia will scatter like flitterdaks.
The attack came near dawn. It was far from concerted. The Blaskoye attacked in their customary waves. The militia marched up in tattered columns and fired uselessly into the stockade woodwork. Did they hope to clatter him to death with banging minié balls? What was more, except for a few units, they had fired en masse. Now they were all simultaneously reloading.
Abel sent his fifty or so mounted Scouts charging out at them. This worked exactly as he expected. A general panic spread down the militia lines. Behind his cavalry, he sent out a handpicked one hundred in lines twelve abreast and three deep.
They attacked in a spreading arc. At least a hundred militia men fell dead or wounded before the first of Abel’s Scouts took a bullet. Within a quarter watch, the Cascade militia, at least five hundred of them, were in headlong retreat toward the River.
Let the carnadons take them. He had other worries.
To the east, the fighting was more intense and even-sided. After the Blaskoye first wave was repulsed, not without Scout loss of life, they drove in behind their own dead donts and used them for cover to dismount and proceed forward on foot. They were not exactly in a battle line, but they did fire in salvos divided by clan, with others firing while those with spent rifles reloaded.
The stockade—really only an ammunition dump on the outskirts of Bruneberg—was not built to withstand a siege. They could hold out for a while, but already the musket shots were chipping away at the thick wooden planks that protected those within.
But it wasn’t only himself and the Scouts pinned down in the stockade. Unbeknownst to their attackers, some of the best men of Bruneberg were in this sty.
First Family oligarchs. Their chief retainers. A handful of gang leaders who didn’t claim aristocratic blood, and some who did.
He’d had his Scouts snatch them from their homes, their places of business, their whorehouse stalls, the day before, when he’d gotten word of the impending attack. It was a grand kidnapping. And if this gamble didn’t pay off, they would see to it that he died slowly and horribly in payment for it.
Eisenach, the leader of the First Families of Bruneberg, was a man with whom Abel had dealt before. He ran the Bruneberg Powderworks like a merchant prince. Although gunpowder was considered sacred, and deliverable to the priestsmiths and the armorers of Lindron at no cost, House Eisenach set the market price for all others—and, having a monopoly—set it at what they wa
nted. When Abel took over, one of his first acts was to remove Eisenach from his temporary military appointment as commandant of the powderworks. Eisenach had responded as if Abel were joking. He hadn’t gone anywhere, and had kept his base of operations in the powderwork offices as always.
From that action to the situation in which he found himself at the moment there was a direct line of causation. Fuck with House Eisenach’s cash flow and a horde of inhabitants of the Redlands would descend on you with massacre on their minds.
For much of the morning, it seemed as if that was exactly what was about to happen. Massacre. Eisenach, though tied to a post by hand and foot, was exultant.
“You’re going to scream, Dashian,” he called out. “They’ll ram a stake up your ass and out your throat, strip your skin, and put you out for the carrion eaters. They know how to make the stake miss all of your organs. Keep you alive so you can die slowly. And I’ll be there the whole time, laughing in your fucking ear.”
Abel shook his head. “Seems unlikely, Eliot.”
“You’d better keep me alive,” he called out. “You’ll beg me to call them off soon.”
The man is not a coward, Abel thought.
He may or may not be in truth. This talk is pure nonsense, calculated to rattle you.
No shit.
He believes he has your number. Does he?
We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?
Aye.
Perversely, the more Blaskoye they shot, the closer the remaining warriors crept, using the bodies of their fallen comrades for cover. The corral itself had a low stone wall surrounding it. When they reached that, they could set up behind it and take potshots at the Scouts to their hearts’ content.
In the distance, there was the rattle of gunfire. Concentrated. Precisely timed. Definitely not Blaskoye.
The Treville Regulars were coming—Abel’s father’s force. They’d infiltrated Cascade District as merchants and traders. Distrusting both Road and River traffic—the Firsts were in total control of area transport—Abel had communicated with his father by flitterdak scroll and requested the reinforcements. Since the exchange of messages had been, of necessity, hit-and-miss, he hadn’t known for sure he would receive support today.
Treville was a very different place, politically, than Cascade. The district military commander and the chief prelate worked in concert. The Firsts, men like Benjamin Jacobson, were powerful there, but they kept to their place. Those that didn’t were apt to receive a lesson from Joab Dashian. Unlike the oligarchs of Bruneberg, those of Hestinga and Garangipore usually got the message and backed off.
It was Abel’s goal to bring the ways of Treville to Cascade.
This was the right thing to do, first of all. And second, it advanced the cause of progress, although he was perhaps the only man living on this world who appreciated that fact.
His worries were resolved. The Treville Regulars hit the Blaskoye from behind. The attack was completely unexpected and devastating. Abel didn’t wait.
“Over those walls and at them, boys!” he called to his Scouts. To their credit, the tired Scouts didn’t hesitate for an instant. The front line of the Blaskoye, seeing a pack of screaming men brandishing rifles charging their positions behind the piles of dont bodies, wavered, and then leaped up and ran.
If it had only been one glorious charge, his Scouts would have run out of steam quickly and been exposed to a counterattack that would have obliterated them. Instead, the assault was the hammer to Joab’s Trevillian anvil. Abel charged along with his men. He fired first his rifle, then a pistol, and finally he was reduced to cutting a Blaskoye’s neck with the old cavalry sword his father had bequeathed him.
Through the smoke and fury, Abel could look over the heads of the fleeing Blaskoye and see the approaching dust cloud of marching Treville Regulars. The Blaskoye ran into its deadly volley full tilt, and fully exposed. Men, boys, women dropped—such close-range fire was indiscriminately horrific. Some fell crying out in pain and anguish, many threw down their weapons and begged for mercy, sheik and commoner alike. Some were silent, to move no more. Those that could streamed to the north and south and scattered across the wheat fields of eastern Cascade. They would find their way back to the Redlands, but not as a cohesive fighting unit.
By mid-afternoon, Abel’s Scouts linked up with the Treville Regulars.
He had won.
Five Blaskoye sheiks had either surrendered or been unseated from their mounts and roughly taken prisoner. Abel knew them from the double blue line hem to their otherwise white robes. He had these brought to the stockade’s main room.
From the rafters of the stockade’s barnlike interior, several bodies were hanging, ropes about their necks. These were older men, fatter men—men who were past their prime for physical labor.
The others were huddled into a clump in the center of the enclosure.
Staring up at the hanging men, the Blaskoye sheiks perhaps believed they were about to die as those others. They had begun to chant their death songs.
Abel had reed mats laid out for them.
“Please, sit,” he said to them. “We will bring refreshment.” True to his word, he personally doled out cups of wine and beer.
The Blaskoye stopped chanting and accepted the drinks—they were so thirsty after hours of fighting that anything would do, even Landish wine. They sat down warily, some prodded by the tip of a Scout bayonet.
Abel had his Scouts pull a First oligarch out of the clump of still surviving captives from town.
“Gentle sheiks,” he said, startling them by speaking in their own tongue. “What am I offered for this one? He will make a fine hand at cleaning stalls, I think. Or perhaps he can work the sulfur mines in your Table Lands?”
After an astonished moment, they realized what Abel was saying. The Blaskoye began to bid.
The remaining oligarchs and headmen were auctioned, one by one.
There was whining, begging, offers of immense wealth. Threats of eternal blood feud and retribution.
Abel just smiled his grim smile and sold another.
Eliot Eisenach was the last. He stood wearily, resigned to his fate, but seemingly determined to give Abel no satisfaction by flinching or begging.
By this time the Blaskoye sheiks were quite drunk, and the bidding had gotten sloppy and out of hand. They were beyond the meager chits they’d brought with them. There were solemn promises of donts and dak herds, mounds of Table Lands sulfur, and sacks of dates and figs from the gardens of the Great Oasis itself.
The woman entered the stockade.
As if a signal had been given, the drunken palaver died to silence. She was lovely. She was dressed in a diaphanous robe of fine linen, and the kohl around her eyes glistened black. She was accompanied by a retinue of four large men—men who looked quite dangerous. When she came to stand beside Abel, they took up positions around her that would cover attack from any quarter of the room.
“Good evening, your grace.”
“Commander.”
“I would like to ask for your advice in a matter now before us.”
“I’ll be happy to be of service if I can.”
“This one,” Abel said, motioning to Eisenach, “tried to have me assassinated. Several times this year. When that didn’t work, he instigated armed insurrection. Got all those unfortunates involved.” He gestured toward the clump of former oligarchs, now bound together in a Blaskoye slave transport line. “He deserves to die. Do you agree?”
“Undoubtedly, if all you say is true.”
“It is.”
“Then yes.”
“Can there be any mercy?”
Mahaut turned and gazed at Eisenach. He glared hatred back at her.
“Well, you might end his line yet spare his life and sell him,” she finally said. Mahaut shrugged. “I know this is better than he deserves, but you did ask me what would be merciful.”
“Thank you, your grace. Your advice will become my command,” Abel s
aid. He turned to the captain of the Cascade Scouts. “Castrate him,” he said. “Then throw him in with the other Blaskoye chattel as a bonus.”
Eisenach had begun to violently tremble. After a moment, his legs gave way and he dropped to his knees. He glared up at Mahaut.
She regarded him for a moment, then stepped close to him. He tried to strike out at her, bite her, but a Scout guarding him caught the movement and savagely yanked him back by the rope about his neck.
Mahaut bent low and whispered in Eisenach’s ear. Abel couldn’t make out all that she said, but Center reported her words: “This is for Abram Karas.”
When Eisenach heard her words, he cried out, gnashed his teeth, and beat his head against the stockade floor. It was soft dirt, however, so he wasn’t able to dash his brains out, if that had been his intention.
Abel turned to Mahaut. “Satisfied?” he asked.
“As soon as I send word to my pater.”
“I’ll see you tonight?”
“Of course.”
Mahaut smiled, bowed, and made her way out.
After sending the amazed Blaskoye on their way east with their new acquisitions (and an armed escort back to the Rim), Abel wearily took up the task of burying his dead.
Cascade District was his now, but it was they who had paid the price in blood.
PART SIX
The Clash
The Present
1
Approaching Progar District
476 Post Tercium
Once they were above the Second Cataract, the road climbed steadily. Rocks jutted more often from the soil of the Valley, and the Rim grew closer and closer. Soon the Valley was barely a league across from West Rim to East Rim. Finally, they were walking on broken stone rather than dirt. The scree was smooth enough for passage of the wagons, but crunched with every step.
What bothered Abel, and was clearly bothering von Hoff, was that the cliffs on either side were now at the edges of the Road. They were marching through a constricted passage, perfect for an enemy sniper or bowman. It troubled von Hoff enough to send Abel to General Saxe and request that he be permitted to send skirmishers up the rocks to take care of any threat from above.