Walking Stone—Paramount war chief of the Westmen.
MAMELUKES
PROLOGUE
During the height of the Cold War the United States Central Intelligence Agency sent volunteer US military units to Africa to aid anti-communist insurgencies against regimes which the USSR supported with Cuban mercenaries. One such unit was headed by Captain Rick Galloway, a track-star ROTC officer who had intended to be a history teacher. Although he believed in the liberation effort, he was never quite certain why he had volunteered to go to Africa. He was discerning enough to realize that he was sent in large part because he was expendable; the Regular Army was being held to fight the coming big war in Europe when Russian divisions would pour through the Fulda Gap in a race to the Rhine and beyond. His unit was hardly elite, made up of troopers of varying experience.
Rick’s second-in-command was Lieutenant André Parsons, a soldier of fortune whose background was obscure but almost certainly included a hitch in the French Foreign Legion.
Rick’s company was surrounded and under attack by Cuban-assisted forces that greatly outnumbered Rick’s light infantry unit. Someone in higher headquarters had called off the rescue attempt, and it would be a matter of hours at most before Rick’s surrounded force would be killed or captured. The unit had been warned of the doctrine of plausible deniability, and someone in the government had decided to deny Rick’s unit had any legal US status. Thus, surrender meant trial as mercenaries and probable execution.
They escaped when an alien spacecraft landed in their midst. Rick thought it might be an experimental US craft, but all doubts were gone when he was invited aboard and met three Shalnuksis, humanoids but certainly not human. This was an alien spacecraft, no matter that Rick did not believe in flying saucers.
The aliens invited Rick to bring his men aboard, and urged haste, as the Cubans must not see the spacecraft. Rick persuaded his men to board. They were taken to a base on Earth’s Moon where they met a human who claimed to be a police inspector for a multiracial interstellar Confederation. Inspector Agzaral wanted to be certain that they had been rescued from a hopeless situation, not kidnapped. Rick convinced him that this was true. Agzaral then told them they would never be allowed to return to Earth. However, the Shalnuksis, the alien merchant race that had engineered their rescue, wished to employ them as mercenaries on Tran, a human-inhabited planet with a civilization comparable to Earth’s Middle Ages. Their task would be to assure the growth and processing of a crop of rare recreational drugs much prized in the Confederation. The Shalnuksis would purchase the crop and give them ammunition and some modern conveniences in exchange.
Their only other alternative was to be wards of the Confederation—wards who had refused employment. Inspector Agzaral made it clear that this would not be pleasant.
* * *
When they landed on Tran, Rick was astonished to find that there had been another American aboard the starship that transported him and his troops from Earth’s Moon to the colony world. Gwen Tremaine, onetime student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, had become the mistress of Les, the ship’s pilot, and was pregnant. When she would not consent to abortion, Les had no choice but to abandon her and the baby. He explained that the Galactics would routinely execute the child; breeding of the human servants of the Galactic Confederation was carefully controlled. He left her on Tran with Rick.
* * *
Immediately after landing on Tran, Rick was deposed as leader in a revolt led by André Parsons, who persuaded the troops that he was more qualified than a college boy. Corporal Art Mason was permitted to accompany Rick into exile. Gwen Tremaine chose to go with Rick rather than stay with Parsons.
On the road east Rick met Tylara do Tamaerthan, heirless Dowager Countess of Chelm and daughter of a highlander clan chieftain. The clans of Tamaerthan were menaced by a reconstituted Roman Empire, and the County of Chelm was under invasion by another empire, the northern Five Kingdoms. Chelm’s Castle had fallen. Tylara was treated as spoils of war by the invaders, but had been rescued and taken out of the dungeons by one of her father’s Tamaerthan henchmen. As they traveled they fell in love, and were married in her father’s highland stronghold, making Rick the Eqeta—Count—of Chelm, and obligating him to reconquer her dower lands.
Rick gradually pieced together the history of Tran. Every six hundred years or so a group of Earth soldiers had been brought to the planet. Each group was used to secure local power and grow crops in one particular region of the planet. Each group founded a culture which diffused into the surrounding cultures without replacing them. The result was a variety of governments. In every case the intrusions corresponded with what local legends call “the Time,” when the seas rose, there were storms, and the weather got increasingly hotter.
Rick deduced that the Romans were late eastern empire when heavy cavalry dominated and infantry was despised; sometime after Constantine and Adrianople, but before the Fall. The Tamaerthan clansmen, probably Welsh, were menaced by the Roman Empire, and faced hunger or starvation unless new sources of food could be found. The clansmen were already excellent archers but had no tactics to use against the Roman heavy cavalry and combined-arms army. Rick taught the clansmen the use of pikes, and by using pikes and bows in combination was able to defeat a Roman provincial army and levy tribute on Roman provinces. This led to a revolt in the Empire. Marselius, formerly a provincial governor, declared himself the new Caesar, and negotiated a peace treaty with Rick and Tamaerthan, thus pacifying the eastern part of the planet’s major continent.
André Parsons, as leader of Rick’s former troops, had sold his services to the Five Kingdoms. Five Kingdoms forces had already overrun Tylara’s County of Chelm, and were about to conquer all of the Kingdom of Drantos. Tylara owed allegiance to the Kingdom of Drantos. Rick’s marriage to Tylara automatically put Rick at war with Parsons and his employers.
Parsons had not proven to be a good leader, and many of the mercenaries had deserted him. Most of the others were disloyal. Parsons tried to kill Rick during a truce conference, but Tylara, armed with a pistol Elliot had given her, killed Parsons. The remaining mercenaries returned their allegiance to Rick and named him their colonel.
Due largely to Rick’s reputation derived from defeating a Roman army, Rick and Tylara became the guardians of Ganton, the boy king of Drantos. By combining the forces of the Tamaerthan clans, the mercenaries, and the Drantos feudal army, Rick was able to defeat the remnant forces loyal to Flaminius Caesar and thus unite the Roman Empire under Marselius. One result of this alliance was the formation of an international university at the Tamaerthan border, with Gwen Tremaine as Rector.
Rick then used the alliance forces to halt the Five Kingdoms invasion of Drantos and begin the work of reconquest. He was also able to begin production of the recreational drug crops for sale to galactic merchants. This convinced the alien faction which had taken him to the planet that he would continue to produce the desired crops in profitable quantities, and ammunition and supplies purchased on Earth were traded for his initial drug crop. The Drantos-Tamaerthan-Roman alliance was able to beat back a number of threats, including an invasion of the high plains nomads known as Westmen, probably descendants of Scythians. There were many other threats, and Rick was feeling overwhelmed.
Unknown to Rick, Tylara formed an intelligence and assassination corps of war orphans known as the Children of Vothan. They were raised in crèches and taught personal devotion to her. She used her assassins to remove a former ally who had become a mortal threat to Rick, but Rick knew none of this. The strain of keeping secrets and Tylara’s jealousies led to the estrangement and informal separation of Rick and Tylara. Tylara in particular was consumed by guilt for deceiving her husband. Rick, having learned of Tylara’s trained assassins, was afraid of his wife. They remained polite, but drew farther apart, and spent little time in each other’s company. Their two children, Makail and Isobel, were to be heirs to the County of Chelm, but affairs of state occupied both Rick
and Tylara, so that the children were largely raised by governesses and bodyguards.
The Five Kingdoms began a new invasion of Drantos, a main attack through Chelm and a second attack in the east exploiting disloyalties of certain Drantos border lords. Tylara attended Morrone, the King’s Companion, in the battles to the east, while in the west Rick held Chelm despite being outnumbered. When Tylara was captured by Prince Strymon, heir to one of the Five Kingdoms and nominally in the service of the High Rexja of the Five Kingdoms, Rick turned over control of his army in the west to his second in command, and rushed to her rescue. He arrived in the middle of the battle of the Ottarn River during a storm. Rick discovered Wanax Ganton was holding steady on the threatened right wing of the army, but no one was effectively in overall command. Rick quickly organized a flanking maneuver against the forces attacking Ganton. While this did turn the battle, Rick quickly became the target of a charge led by Matthias, Highpriest of Vothan and Marshall of the Great Host of the Five Kingdoms. Just when Rick thought he would be killed, Tylara appeared like a Valkyrie out of the gloom and struck down Matthias.
PART ONE
TREASON
CHAPTER ONE
VICTORY
The rain had slacked off to drizzle, leaving the battlefield wet with both water and blood. There were screams of dying men, horses, and centaurs, but the thick rain and fog softened these if not the sudden crack of a .45 pistol. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air, bright copper smells mingled with the muskier odor of centaur blood. Neither sun was visible for long through the gray clouds, but the True Sun shone through near the horizon for a moment as it set. The dimmer Firestealer made a bright spot two hours high, and through the clouds lit the grisly battlefield with a dull gray light.
Rick Galloway, Colonel of Mercenaries, Warlord of Drantos, Eqeta of Chelm, and one time Captain, United States Army, rode painfully after his wife. There was no way to catch her, not with his horse blown from three days hard travel and a day of fighting.
A hard day of fighting. Rick had arrived unannounced in the middle of a major battle between Ganton’s royal army and invading forces from the neighboring Five Kingdoms. King Ganton was somewhere in the thick of the fighting. Prince Strymon, formerly an enemy and now inexplicably an ally to Ganton, was in charge of the army but was unsure where the forces of Drantos were engaged or how the battle was progressing. No one was in effective command.
And I took charge and won the battle. Luck, Rick thought. Blind luck. He had just enough information to form a battle plan. More a scheme than a plan, he thought, but it had worked. Rick took charge of all the idle forces he could round up and led them in a flanking maneuver that gave the enemy the choice of trying to fight through the one Drantos formation that held steady under Wanax Ganton, or run away in disorder. The fog of war—more literally heavy rain, which silenced Rick’s gunpowder weapons but blinded the enemy as well—had done its work. Taken from flank and behind by Rick and his star weapons, the Five Kingdoms invading forces had fled in panic.
Victory, Rick thought. But it was a near thing. He felt the weight of his armor dragging at him, and he ached all over.
He looked up to see Tylara racing ahead. His heart sang. She’s alive, unhurt, safe! And the darkness had lifted from her soul. She rode laughing through the rain, the war axe hanging from its strap on her pommel. It was forgotten now, but moments before she had been swinging that axe about her head, charging like a Valkyrie into a battle that seemed all but lost. Now they rode through the aftermath of battle and victory. More horses screamed in pain, men wandered aimlessly with haunted eyes. A few peasants had already crept out to rob the dead and dying. Rick turned to give orders, then shook his head. Let others take charge now. The battle was won.
And I have my wife back! Rick grinned widely.
Tylara do Tamaerthan, Eqetassa of Chelm, High Justiciar of Drantos, and the loveliest girl Rick had ever seen, looked back to see that Rick was falling behind. She reined in. “You said you would race!” she said. “You forfeit!”
“I love to hear you laugh,” Rick said. “Tylara—I thought I’d lost you.”
She waited until he reached her, then rode on beside him.
“I was lost, my husband. My love,” she said in a lower voice. “And I may yet be, there is much you do not know.”
“I think I do. If you mean the Children of Vothan.”
“My assassins. That is not the worst. I killed Caradoc,” she said. “My most loyal man, my rescuer, and I sent the Children to kill him like a dog in the streets.”
Rick glanced around. MacAllister was twenty paces behind. Jamiy, his orderly and shield bearer, had lost his horse and was farther back still waiting another. A few troops rode ahead with Padraic, his Guards commander, but there was no one to overhear.
“I know that, too,” Rick said. And I know why. I would never have done it, but something had to be done—
“And you forgive me?” She pulled gently on the left rein and guided her horse to meet his until they were riding side by side, close together.
“I could forgive you anything,” Rick said. “Would, and do.”
“Would I could forgive myself,” Tylara said. “But I never will. Rick, I thought I did right. And there was so little time to decide.”
“I know. Tylara, when I heard that Caradoc was dead in a street riot, dead before he could return to what he thought was his home, I thought it was divine providence. It was the only way! Alive he would have entangled us in war with the Galactics. And with good reason, too. I was glad he was dead. But I thought it good fortune, luck, not—later I learned better. You should have told me.”
“It was an act of dishonor. Should I have dishonored you as well as myself? But all seemed lost—my husband, My Lord, we will speak more of this another time,” Tylara said. “I am glad you know. I brooded—”
“I know. I didn’t know why, and I thought it was me.”
“I am sorry, my love. I was afraid. And you were cold, and I thought I had lost your love—”
“And I thought I’d lost you. It’s done and over,” Rick said. “We stand together now, now and forever. And whatever there is to fear, Tylara, we face that together.”
She smiled and reached for his hand.
“Now and forever,” she said, so low that he barely heard her. “Yatar and Christ be thanked.” They rode on in silence.
“I think the king does not know any of this.” Tylara gestured ahead. Ganton, Wanax of Drantos, stood by the banner of the Fighting Man, golden helmet under his arm. His helmet was dented, and his armor was stained with blood, but he stood proudly enough, with a dozen dead enemies at his feet, hundreds more in front of his position. He looked much older than his years, a man now rather than the boy he had been when he came to the throne, even if his years were not yet those of a man. A score of the chivalry of Drantos stood around him to shout his praises.
“Victory!”
“A victory for Drantos alone! Without Roman aid! Ganton’s victory,” someone shouted.
“Ganton alone! Ganton Imperator! Ganton the Great!”
The shouting quieted as Rick and Tylara rode up.
“Lord Rick,” Ganton said. The triumphant grin faded. “I had heard that you were here.” Suddenly he looked smaller and younger, as he might have when Tylara was his Guardian and not his Justiciar; a teenaged boy for a moment before standing straight like a king again.
“Aye! Majesty! He was here in truth!” Three lords of Drantos appeared out of the rain. “The battle was lost, we knew not where you were, where our troops were! The rain silenced the Great Guns, clouds and rain hid the enemy. The armies of the Five rallied to the attack. All seemed lost, and then Lord Rick came! In an hour he had taken command, led us across the field to fall upon the enemy! Did you not know? You were near lost, Majesty, the day was near lost, the enemy was upon you when Lord Rick fell upon them from behind!”
Ganton turned to his lords. “Is this true?”
Some s
hrugged. One or two said, shamefacedly, “Aye, Majesty. It was a near enough thing.”
“So it was none of my victory,” Ganton said. “Well, a day. A victory none the less. And I have not greeted you properly, Lord Rick. Welcome!”
“I think little good will come of this,” Tylara muttered.
Rick painfully climbed down from his horse to kneel in greeting.
“My thanks for your welcome, Majesty.”
“So you arrived just in time,” Ganton said. “To save me yet again. Stand up, Warlord. I must think of a suitable reward.”
Rick got to his feet. He felt unsteady, as the fatigue of his forced marches followed by a day of battle caught up with him.
“I need no reward, Majesty. I have only done my duty.”
“Yet, I recall, we had agreed that your duty was to hold the West against the invaders there,” Ganton said.
“They are held,” Rick said. “Held and more than held. And when news of this day comes to them, they will likely fall back to their own lands.”
“News of this day,” Ganton said. “News of your victory.”
“Not mine, Majesty. Yours. You commanded here.”
Ganton gestured around him, at heaps of dead and dying men and horses. Some of the dying stirred feebly, and here and there a horse screamed in pain. The bright blue and yellow of the priests of Yatar moved among the wounded.
“Commanded. I stood my ground, here, and we held,” Ganton said. “We held. I thought to let them come to me and break their teeth.”
“Aye! Nobly done!” one of the knights shouted. “A thousand fell before you! Nobly done!”
“Aye, say nobly done,” Ganton said. “Say bravely done, but say stupidly done as well, since I left no one in command able to exploit our deeds.” He lifted his palms and face to the sky, then grinned. “And Yatar and His Son Christ have rewarded me, for in my hour of need came once again Lord Rick and Lady Tylara to win the day for me. Well done, Lord Rick. Well done, and welcome.”
Mamelukes Page 2