by David Drake
That is, until they received their orders that day from General von Hoff. They were to ally with the Blaskoye against the enemy within.
Cascade.
The traitor Dashian.
Three days later, they came in trickles and then torrents. That night, Timon moved them out. Their pathway lit only by the pale light of Levot, two thousand Guardians marched north from the Giants.
In the morning, two battalions gave chase, but their hearts weren’t in the pursuit. All knew it must end with Guardian slaughtering Guardian. They pulled back once the deserters crossed into Ingres. Word had come that they were needed back in the capital. The Blaskoye horde had crossed into southern Treville and were making their way south toward the capital. It was time to put their new orders into practice.
Fantastically, they were to make the Blaskoye welcome.
After an alliance was negotiated, they would move north together to crush the rebellion in Cascade. To take down the last Dashian.
It was a strange arrangement, some might say an impossible arrangement, but the general had been very specific, and the Abbot backed him up.
The general and the Abbot were the chosen of Zentrum.
His might and his voice.
They must know what they were doing.
God must know what he was doing.
Mustn’t he?
3
Bruneberg District Military Headquarters
Cascade District
477 Post Tercium
Trading and commerce paved the streets of Bruneberg. Literally. When a commitment on a barter chip was kept and the value redeemed, the chit was smashed. These shards were swept out daily from the merchant shops and counting houses. Pieces of broken chits covered the streets in a layer a thumb’s length thick. They were trod and trod, and eventually the edges wore away, and they became almost indistinguishable from paving gravel. That is, except that bits of glyphs remained, shattered words and numbers. Promises discharged, remitted, or reneged upon. Puzzles that would never be solved again.
And after four years as Cascade District DMC, they felt like his streets, as well. They would never be as beautiful as the streets of Lindron: carefully laid out and lined with flowers. But they possessed a sort of charm. People worked for a living in this town, and it showed.
Abel crunched along from a visit to the gunpowder works at the River where the Silent Brothers churned out their magical powder, kerning it in a huge barrel, many times larger than a man at full height and filled with fist-sized balls of pure lead—because lead did not make sparks. He turned into the garrison, received and returned a salute, and strode into his office in the HQ building.
“Morning, Colonel,” said his new XO, Metzler, whom he’d recalled from Montag Island and appointed as his second-in-command. “Received incoming messages via flitterdak. The animal looks like a Lindron flyer.”
“Are they on my desk?”
“Yes, colonel, they are.”
“Good. Thank you, Metzler.”
Abel entered his office. It was spare, with only a utilitarian work table and two chairs. The note was rolled out on the table. It was made of thin, gossamer papyrus and the ink was written in a tiny hand, as if the author wished to cram as much as possible into the delivery vial strapped to the flitterdak’s leg.
I don’t have much time, and I wanted to get this information to you quickly. The enemy is within. About fifteen Blaskoye have entered the Tabernacle, and a horde of many thousands has crossed Low Pass. It’s said the Blaskoye in the Tabernacle are in communion with Zentrum. Citizens aren’t to harm them. And that horde is not headed toward Lindron. It’s headed toward you, Abel.
So that’s how it’s going to be, he thought. Zentrum gave them Orash to sack, and now he’s sending them toward Bruneberg to harass me. Treville is out of it, now that Father has been removed. Zentrum must know I am the last threat he needs to deal with. Me and the Cascade Regulars.
Meanwhile, the Guardian Corps arrived and conferred at the Tabernacle with the Blaskoye. Yes, you read this correctly. I’ve learned from a source in the Tabernacle that they have gone to Ingres to set up defenses. These defense works stretch east and west, Abel. They are to become a base of operations to the north.
So von Hoff’s temporary appointment was rescinded, Abel thought. Not a surprise. I only hope they didn’t throw him in prison when they sacked him. Or to the carnadons.
The next line sent a chill up Abel’s spine.
The Goldies moving into Ingress are commanded by Zachary von Hoff. Yes, your friend. Abel, he has an alliance with the Blaskoye and they are fighting alongside him. I repeat: the Goldies and the horde are in alliance.
You are their declared enemy.
We will do what we can in Lindron to hamstring them from behind. But you will face the brunt of this attack. If you fall, the Blood Winds will blow.
Destroy them, my love. If you can’t do it for Duisberg, do it for me.
M.
Von Hoff.
How could that be? Surely von Hoff could see that an alliance with the Blaskoye was madness. They could at any moment turn traitor and attack the Goldies without warning.
Blaskoye in the Tabernacle.
Von Hoff couldn’t be fooled by this.
He just couldn’t.
And yet Abel did not for one moment doubt the provenance of the message. This was Mahaut’s writing.
And there was the keyword they’d always used. No one else in the Land, no one on the planet, knew what this world used to be called.
No one but himself and Mahaut.
Duisberg.
The only possible way it could be subterfuge was if she were kidnapped and the keyword taken from her by torture. That was possible. But to what end? His Scouts had reported. There was no Blaskoye activity to his east or barbarian movement in the less inhabited west.
Every sign, every bit of intelligence, said they had gone to Awul-alwaha and dropped off their child slaves with the women of the tribes. Then, after a meeting of several days, the horde had ridden forth. Reports placed it at over ten thousand strong.
It had headed southeast.
With this message from Mahaut, there was now no doubt where they had gone.
Von Hoff was in league with the Blaskoye.
He was going to have to fight the Corps and the horde.
He’d expected to have a near impossible task before him when he moved to strike.
But not von Hoff.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Abel had always believed von Hoff would understand, would come over to Abel’s side.
In his fantasies, it was Zachary von Hoff who rode into Lindron with Abel nearby, von Hoff’s man as always.
I’ve lost Center. I’ve lost Raj.
I may have lost Father.
Now I’ve lost my teacher and friend.
Abel sat back in his chair. He slowly rolled the small papyrus back into a tight scroll, no longer than his thumb, no thicker than his little finger.
Outside, he heard the peaceful gurgling of the flitterdak that had brought the scroll. It was reunited with its mate, and the two were chirping joyfully to one another. At least he thought it was joy. Who knew what really went on in the mind of the creatures? It was a programmed response. All flitterdaks danced the same courting dance, made the same noises.
Abel poured himself a cup of wine from the pitcher on his desk. He took a sip, contemplated the shadows of light produced by the reed-grass outside his window, planted to shield the building from the worst of the midday sun.
My friend, he thought. I will have to come for you now. And I know you’ll be waiting.
Thrice-damn Zentrum for doing this, for turning friend against friend.
Yet it was done. He would no longer take commands from Zachary von Hoff. He would fight him if he must. He would kill him if he could.
Abel took up the cup of wine again and drained it. He set it back down gingerly beside the pitcher. The wine was good Cascade white, from the district’s
northern vineyards. He only now noticed it was chilled.
Metzler must have put it in the springhouse overnight. He was a good man for details.
He’s my man now, Abel thought.
Most of the Cascade Regulars were, and more would become so.
They’ll soon enough understand that Cascade is von Hoff’s target. He won’t stop with me. He’ll destroy them all.
And then the Blaskoye will destroy him.
Zentrum will have his Blood Wind after all.
Unless Cascade fights.
We have the means.
Landry’s revolving rifles, brought down from the Orash foundry, filled the garrison warehouses and ammunition depots. There were enough for each man and to spare. Abel had put the Regulars to practicing with them as soon as he’d returned to Cascade.
A month of practice. Would it be enough?
The decision is mine, Abel thought. We are ready.
Von Hoff. What a loss.
But what was done was done.
He was beholden to no one.
Only to a whisper from the distant past fallen from the sky, and now extinguished by a malevolent fraud of a god.
Extinguished, yes—except in my memory, Abel thought.
To cold hell with Zentrum.
Center and Raj had left him with the hard truth. They’d given him a plan. The plan was no longer destiny. In fact, he might be doomed and not yet know it. Still, the plan, the calling, was a legacy he would honor.
He would defend the Land. He would save the future. Or he would die trying.
There was no one left but him to do it.
He was the general now.
PART TWELVE
The Return
The Present
1
Treville District
High Cliff Scout Base
477 Post Tercium
The cavernous fortress was filled with a thin haze of cookfire smoke. The faint odor of dont acid and dont shit wafted in from the connected stable in another part of the cave. Light streamed through several holes laboriously pounded dozens of elbs through the rock with a riveroak staff a handwidth in diameter. Abel knew because he’d helped pound through one of those holes when he’d been fourteen years old and serving out his first stint with the Treville Scouts, as gopher and waterboy. The task had taken a week of steady hammering with a rotating gang of three men with granite weighted sledges. He could hear the steady trickle of the water filling the year-round pool in the depths of the fortress’s main cave.
He hadn’t been here in eight years, but it still felt like home. “Something rotten is going on,” Abel said. “I need your help.”
Abel was speaking to the gathered Scouts, about thirty men, who sat on their haunches in a circle around him. Their captain, Lausner, had served as a lieutenant under Abel when Abel had been captain of the Scouts. The rest of the Scouts were on patrol in the Redlands. There were about two hundred of them out there at any given time, moving in squad-sized groups, independent, resourceful, and resilient as ever. These men present would carry word to the others.
The one Scout missing whom Abel had very hoped would be here was his old friend and mentor Sergeant Kruso, a man so completely a Scout that he spoke the Redlands patois as a first language, though he understood Landish well enough. Kruso was on patrol breaking in a squad of newbie recruits and was expected back soon.
“I’m sure you’ve wondered about the cutbacks, the supply problems, the lack of powder. Let me tell you something: this isn’t like the bad old days. The reason you don’t have ball and powder is not because of problems at the Bruneberg Powderworks. Bruneberg ships plenty of ammunition down-River. But it isn’t ending up with the Scouts anymore. Why is that? Because there is something rotten in the Land.”
“Tell us what to do, Commander,” said Lausner. “We are few. The Land is vast.”
Abel looked around at the windburned faces turned toward him. Each was silently asking him the same question as their commander.
They’re listening closer than they ever did when I was their captain, Abel thought. Of course, most of them knew me too well. They’d seen me start off as a bumbling Valley boy without a bit of sense, but with an unquenchable to desire to be a Scout and have adventures.
He’d almost gotten himself killed a few times learning the ropes.
Now the Scouts were paying full attention. A Dashian was speaking, and there was no name the Treville Scouts trusted more. He knew to put this down to his father’s near godlike repute among the Scouts rather than to anything he himself had done.
“I want to take you, and as many Regulars as we can muster on short notice”—And who are willing to turn traitor on the new DMC, he thought—“and meet those bastards who are coming up from Lindron to finish us off. I reckon we’ll engage them somewhere on the Plains of Ingres.”
“You want us to fight Goldies?” Lausner asked.
Here it was. The point on which all else turned. To slaughter barbarian Redlanders was one thing, but to turn upon your own brothers in arms? The prospect was enough to wrench any loyal heart.
“That’s exactly the attitude they’re hoping for,” Abel said. “But you’ve seen the score. Joab Dashian has been kidnapped, maybe killed. Prelate Zilkovsky, too. You’ve seen who was put in those places, and heard the orders you’re given. Abandon the Southern District? You know this is crazy. Defending against the Redland invaders is why there are Regulars, why there are Scouts. So why? What do you think it means?” He looked out over the upturned faces. “Anyone?”
From the back, a voice rang out. “Them be not tha Landsons thet tha claimet ta be!”
A dust cloud and the rattle of doffed gear falling to the floor in the rear. Abel would have recognized the voice anywhere. Kruso had returned from patrol.
“That’s right,” Abel said. “They may wear the red and white sash, but only because they’ve stolen the rightful power, the true authority of this district. You know who that is, don’t you?”
A low murmur as a few voices called out “Dashian, Dashian.”
The call was soon taken up, repeated over and over. It grew into a cheer. The din became a roar in the fortress cavern.
“Dashian!”
“So those we go to meet may be misinformed. They may be misguided. But one thing is for certain: they are fighting on the wrong side of the Land and the Law. We—”
Another crescendo of cheering. “Dashian, Dashian!”
Abel let it dampen, but not quite die down, before continuing. “We are Irisobrian’s men, the keepers of the true flame.”
He took out the box of lucifers he always carried, held it up. Almost every man in the room had a similar box in his pocket. “Men fail in their understanding. Even generals. Even priests. Trust the Lady.”
“The Lady, the Lady!”
Irisobrian, the Lady, was at the center of the Scouts’ religious sect. She was Zentrum’s mother. She was supposed to have suckled the young Zentrum for forty days and forty nights at the beginning of the world, her dead body still producing milk even after she’d been struck down by sickness at the River’s edge.
Most of the Scouts followed the sect of Irisobrianism and venerated her. It was officially a heresy, but was tolerated by commanders. For their part, its practitioners kept their devotion very quiet. It was only after five years among them that Abel had been invited to one of their secret conclaves conducted in caves along the Escarpment. He hadn’t joined, but he’d found the main ritual of the sect, the communion feast of the Lady’s body, interesting, and was amazed at how these otherwise rough and ready practical men took to something so symbolic and spiritually minded.
Now I know that calling on a higher power is something men need when they put their lives on the line—even men who otherwise have no belief at all, Abel thought. At least I can call on the Lady without it sickening me. Don’t know if I could stomach acting in the name of Zentrum.
“And when we face those who are following wrong o
rders, we can’t go soft. We’ll have to fight them as we would the hardest Redland devil. Because they’ll be much, much stronger. But we are strong, too.”
He raised his revolving rifle.
“I’m going to equip all of you with these,” Abel said. “That’s what’s in that train of wagons you saw trailing behind me on the first plateau. You aren’t fools. You know we have to have some kind of an advantage against those misguided, son-of-a-bitch Goldies or we’ll get our butts kicked, and this is it.”
There were murmurs in the crowd of Scouts, and Abel heard the word he most feared, “nishterlaub,” whispered about. He looked out over the men. Was he going to lose them here?
Law and Land, I wish I had that thrice-damned Raj to guide me, he thought. When it came to the behavior of soldiers, Raj’s advice had always been right on. Now I’m flying like a blind flitterdak. I just hope I learned something from all those years with the voices.
There was movement at the rear of the crowd. Men were shoved aside, gently but firmly. Other men turned to look to see what the commotion was, understood it, then parted and formed a way through their ranks.
Kruso stepped forward. “Tha Commander’s pardon ta git bah begging, bot whut the cold hell do be thet in yer hand? Wilt tha allow fer meh a touch heben?”
Abel nodded and wordlessly passed the rifle down to Kruso. The Scout sergeant took it, examined it, and gave a little smile. He found the retaining pin to the revolving chamber with ease and popped out the cylinder. It slid out still attached to its cranelike armature as Landry had designed it.
“Tha shots—how many bahfor reload?”
“Six,” said Abel. “And then you can put in another load with six more.”
Kruso looked over his shoulder at the other Scouts. He must have flashed a look of happy amazement, because suddenly there was expectant silence in the cave, a collective intake of breath. The sound of water from the rear of the cavern was the only sound.
Kruso turned his attention back to the cylinder.