Down to the Sea

by William R. Forstchen

  He could feel the drug taking hold, the strange floating, the sudden awareness of the finest nuances of the narrow universe of the cabin, the way motes of dust floated, the scent of salt air drifting in, such a pleasant relief washing away the fetid stench.

  He heard the sharp rasping snick of a knife being drawn, and the Shiv held it up before Sean’s eyes. As Sean rocked back and forth, suspended from his chains, the Shiv remained motionless, the point of the blade raised so that with each forward swing it barely touched Sean’s skin, drawing blood from his arms and chest.

  Hazin, meanwhile, continued to stare at Richard.

  Not you, he seemed to whisper. The other one is the one I know will break.

  “What is it you want?” Richard gasped.

  “You know,” Hazin whispered.

  “No, I don’t.”

  Sean was crying, beginning to beg. Richard froze, closing his eyes, trying to block out the sound, and yet still he felt as if Hazin was looking at him, probing within, seeking for something that could not be described by words.

  “No, not that, God no.”

  Richard opened his eyes and saw with horror that the Shiv had lowered his blade and was preparing to make the most cruel of cuts with it.

  Sean was shaking his head back and forth, feebly kicking, his cries drawn out into a long pitiful moan.

  Richard looked back at Hazin. “Stop it,” he gasped. “I’ll tell you what you want, just leave him alone.”

  “No, you would lie, Cromwell. You would try to save your friend, but still you would lie.”

  “I’ll tell you anything,” Sean begged, “just not that.”

  Richard lowered his head, and in spite of himself tears welled up. He had never had room for pity in his life. There was no room for pity in slavery, it could only lead to death. Yet now he felt it for a comrade who had been pushed beyond the limits of endurance. He wondered as well if he would have broken with such a threat. He wondered if Hazin, who somehow seemed to be inside his very thoughts, knew the answer to that question.

  He heard the snick of a lock opening. The Shiv had unsnapped one of the manacles holding Sean and then unlocked the other. O’Donald fell to the deck, sagging down onto his knees. The Shiv effortlessly picked him up and carried him out of the room.

  But Hazin did not follow. Another Shiv came in, this one almost identical to the first. He had the same muscular build, the same sharklike eyes devoid of emotion. Richard wondered if the torture was to continue.

  Instead there was a blessed relief as the manacles around his wrists were unfastened. He tried to remain on his feet as he dropped to the deck, but his knees gave way. The Shiv pulled him back up and roughly tossed a cloak over his shoulders, covering his nakedness, then pointed at the door.

  Legs wobbly, Richard did as ordered. It was difficult to walk. The pain was beginning to float away, replaced by a strange warmth, and yet his mind still seemed focused on his awareness of Hazin.

  Stepping into the sunlight, he breathed deeply. The ship was strange, its lines sleeker than the Gettysburg, no masts; its deck painted a dull gray and scorched here and there with battle damage. Part of the deck forward had been split apart.

  The ocean was a vast expanse of a deep, lush blue, sparkling with whitecaps driven before a warm, tropical breeze. He felt, at that moment, as if it were the most beautiful experience he had ever known—the ocean, the scent of the wind, the rocking of the ship beneath his feet as it plowed through the gently rolling sea.

  Hazin stepped past him, motioning to him to follow, and Richard went up a ladder and through an open door. The light inside was muted. What appeared to be an altar of black stone rose at the far end of the room, which was filled with the sweet scent of incense.

  Silk curtains over the portholes were drawn shut, but a soft, diffused light filtered through, giving the room a gentle, comfortable feel Hazin motioned to a chair set by a table. On it was an open decanter and a single crystal goblet beside it.

  “Have something to drink. Cromwell.”

  “Is it drugged as well?”

  Hazin smiled. “Of course. You can refuse, but in the end thirst will compel you, and you will drink. So why endure the wait?”

  Richard looked at the decanter and hesitated.

  “Your friend is drinking even now.”

  Richard looked bitterly over at Hazin. But his back was turned, facing the altar, holding a burning taper to light a candle.

  “Cromwell, we can play this game for the rest of the day. You can even try and kill yourself by not drinking. But I can assure you that you will be forced to drink.”

  Hazin turned and smiled. “O’Donald is telling us everything—the size of your fleet, your army, types of weapons, he’ll tell us all.”

  “Your spies told you already, so why torture him?” Richard snapped.

  “Interesting. You seem more worried about him than yourself.”

  “I know what to expect.”

  “I understand your body was covered with lash scars even before the current unpleasant treatment. Were you a slave of the Bantag?”

  “The Merki.”

  “Even crueler. A primitive people, the Merki. It shows a certain toughness on your part.”

  Richard continued to eye the decanter. It contained a swirl of color, a rainbow sparkle of light that was infinitely pleasing.

  “The information we have on your Republic is old. Half a dozen or more years. After the treaty we of course sent spies in, but recent events caused my order to shift its attention elsewhere. Frankly, the appearance of your ship was a bit of a surprise for me, but in the web of things I feel there might be a use for it—and you.”

  Hazin drew closer, and, pulling out a chair on the other side of the table, he sat down. Richard looked at him warily, gaze flickering to his belt, hoping to see a knife. Though all of this race had an overwhelming physical strength, they were usually slower, even a bit clumsy, and a human moving quickly could at times snatch a blade or weapon.

  “I’m not armed, at least not with the type of weapons you seek,” Hazin announced dryly, as if bored with Richard’s intentions.

  “What the hell do you want, then?” Richard snapped. “If poor Sean is breaking, you have what you need. I’ll just lie, and you know that. So finish it, damn you.”

  Hazin chuckled softly. “Spirit. That’s why you are sitting here with me while ‘poor Sean,’ as you call him, is being questioned in a slightly different manner.”

  Richard bristled, and Hazin held up his hand.

  “No. The torture is finished. That was just a way of making one of the two of you pliable. You intrigue me, Cromwell. I just want to talk.”

  “How did you know our names?”

  “Foolish question. I expected better. Your names were written on the seams of your clothing, and both of you had your commission papers in your wallets. Poor security, flyers should never be allowed out like that. One of my Shiv recognized the name O’Donald, and I of course had heard of your father.”

  Richard stiffened and lowered his eyes.

  “Yes, the traitor of your Great War, Did you know him?”

  “No. My mother was a Merki slave. He died when I was an infant.”

  “Yet you kept his name. A certain pride there. I approve of that in anyone, of my race or of yours.”

  “The Shiv?” Richard asked.

  Hazin stood up and returned to the altar, then leaned against it, looking back at Richard. “The future for this world.”

  “The Republic is the future. If you come after us, you will never win.”

  “A loyal answer, but then, you only know of your Republic. You know nothing of us, of what we are and shall be.” Richard thought of the ship he was now on, how easily it had smashed the Gettysburg, of the man with the cold eyes who Richard sensed could kill with effortless efficiency.

  “The Shiv are your future, Cromwell. Across ten generations we of my Order have been breeding humans, seeking the traits desired: physical st
rength, intellect, and cunning. Those who pass such traits on to the next generation are allowed to continue to breed. The others,” and he smiled, “well, they have their uses as well.”

  Richard looked at him, incredulous. He knew he should feel outrage and disgust, but the damnable drug was making itself felt. The room was drifting, floating. The way the light shone through the porthole, catching Hazin’s strange blue eyes, held his attention.

  “Imagine what fifty thousand such warriors could do to your army. But there does not have to be a fight. It could instead be a compromise, an understanding without needless bloodshed.”

  “The Republic will never surrender, as long as Keane and those who think like him are alive.”

  Hazin nodded. “Yes, I know. Just a dream of mine.” He sighed.

  Strangely, Richard felt a sympathy, almost a desire to somehow please, to understand. He fought against it, trying to stay focused, to find something, anything in the room that he could fight with, to kill, to go down fighting.

  “You have a remarkable strength, Cromwell. I admire that. Everyone else is far too transparent and malleable. It is actually rather boring at times.”

  Hazin drew closer and remained standing, looking down at Richard.

  “I could force you, I want you to know that. The Shiv are bred to the needs of my order. At five they are taken from their mothers, who offer them up gladly, and for the next fifteen years are trained mainly by those of their own race. Half die in that training for war, or for other work, or for our special purposes.”

  “Special purposes?”

  “We can discuss that later.”

  “I give them something to believe.” He nodded to the black altar. “Combine such strength with religious belief, and you have a force that is terrifying to behold. You, unfortunately, would never believe. Always there would be the memory of childhood, of other things. I could deaden you with what is in that decanter, make you pliable for a while, but you could never be fully of them.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I’ve never had the opportunity before,” Hazin replied. “It intrigues me. You are not of the Shiv, not of the millions of other humans who live among us as slaves. Being different, there must be a use for you. Focusing on that will be an interesting experiment for me.”

  Richard struggled for control, to somehow avoid the eyes, the sudden thirst, the desire to let the power of the drug expand. After the war, in the rare times that he and Vasiliy had gone to Suzdal, he had seen more than one crippled veteran who had become addicted to the morphine given to them in the hospital. They would sit in a shady corner, oblivious to their squalor, drifting in dreams. Is that what they are doing to me now?

  He looked back at the decanter and then, with a slow deliberate gesture, knocked it over. As the decanter fell off the table, it seemed to hang suspended. Fascinated, he watched as it ever so slowly fell, the golden container upending, crystal blue liquid gurgling out onto the dark wooden floor.

  His gaze shifted to Hazin.

  “No,” he whispered. “I suggest that you find your entertainment elsewhere.”

  “I could make it far more painful that you could ever imagine. We could slowly cut your friend apart in front of you for starters, then turn on you.”

  “Go ahead. We’re dead anyhow.” The brave words spilled out of him, even as the thought of what was to come.

  Of course, he had proclaimed the usual amnesty, even praising those of the court who had so loyally served his brother. Once settled in, he could begin the quiet process of elimination and vengeance.

  And yet the question of Hanaga’s survival still lingered. A survivor from Hanaga’s flagship had been fished out of the water and claimed to have seen him abandoning ship just before it had exploded.

  It would be like him to survive,” Yasim muttered, looking over at the slight diminutive form wrapped in the white and gold robe of the Grand Master.

  “And which ship did he flee to?”

  “The sailor did not know.”

  “Undoubtedly one of ours.”

  “One of yours?”

  The Grand Master chuckled. “But of course. Don’t you think there is more than one captain of a ship who is secretly a member of our order?”

  Yasim looked over nervously at the Grand Master. “You said that Hazin was reliable, that he would fulfill the contract.”

  “Yes I know.”

  “I sense uncertainty in your voice, Grand Master.” There was no reply.

  SIX

  “I never realized how beautiful it could be out here,” Abraham Keane said, hands clasped around a warming cup of tea to ward off the early morning chill.

  Sergeant Kasumi Togo laughed, shaking his head. “You’re a romantic, Keane. You should have grown up out here as I did. The steppes can be deadly.”

  Abe did not reply, looking past Togo, soaking in every detail and reveling in it.

  The eastern horizon was showing the first glow of impending dawn, a band of dark purple that was expanding outward, the core of light a golden red. He turned to look to the western horizon. The twin moons, Hasadran and Baka, old Horde names that had stuck with the human race, were dipping low.

  Togo was squatting by the campfire, made of dried horse and mammoth dung. Looking at him, Abe wondered if it had been the same between his father and Hans Schuder, the older sergeant taking the young officer under his wing.

  Togo had been with the cavalry ever since Nippon joined the Republic after the end of the war, serving as sergeant in command of scouts attached to the 3rd cavalry. Abe had been naturally drawn to him, sensing that here was a man who could teach him the ways of the steppe and of the Bantag, and the sergeant had been more than indulgent and patient.

  “So how is it with the general?” Togo asked, nodding toward Hawthorne’s tent.

  “What do you mean?”

  “With them bastards over there.” As he spoke he indicated the encampment of the Bantag, which filled the plains to the east.

  “Nothing’s changed.”

  “I heard rumor we’re to stay on for a while, keep an eye on them.”

  Abe stiffened slightly, and Togo laughed.

  “Don’t get upset, Lieutenant. It’s my job, in a way, to know what generals are thinking.”

  “Well, you didn’t hear anything from me.”

  “Relax, Lieutenant. You’re the model of a proper officer, you are.”

  Abe wasn’t sure if Togo was being sarcastic or just having a little fun with him. He knew he was still too stiff and formal, typical of the academy with its spit and polish and every button buffed to a shine. Out here on the frontier it was a different world; of dirty blue and khaki, muddy water, and glaring heat.

  “In the old days, they marked the time of dread,” Togo said, pointing at the twin moons. “Tomorrow they’ll be full, signaling the moon feast.”

  Abe nodded. God, what a world his parents had known. He could hardly imagine the terror of it. Looking back to the east, he could see the early morning glow silhouetting the golden yurt of Jurak Qar Qarth.

  It had been a subject in class more than once, the primal terror that the mere presence of a Horde rider engendered in all humans, and yet somehow he could almost feel a pity for them now in spite of all that his father, Hawthorne, and others had endured in the Great War. What was it like to lose, to see one’s greatness shattered, to live at the whim of another race? A generation ago they had bestrode the earth, riding where they pleased, living as their ancestors had for thousands of years.

  In the negotiations of the last week he had sensed that and developed a begrudging respect for Jurak, wondering how his own father would react to the reality of what was happening out here.

  He had seen the poverty of their camps, the thin bodies of their young, the scramble for food when the carcass of a mammoth was brought in, more than a little ripe after two days of hauling it from the place where it had been killed and butchered.

  “My father,
brothers, and sisters all died at their hands,” Togo announced, gaze fixed, like Abraham’s, on the yurt. Abe turned. “You never told me that.”

  “No reason to talk about it.” He shrugged, taking another sip of tea.

  “Do you hate them?”

  Togo smiled. “Of course. Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Togo looked at him with surprise. “You, the son of Andrew Keane?”

  “I don’t know at times. From all that I’ve heard, my father in battle became another person. But he always said that hatred makes you vulnerable. It clouds your judgment. It closes off being able to think as your opponent does and through that defeating him.

  “I do know he hated the leader of the Merki, I think in part because of Hans Schuder. But those over there”—he pointed toward the yurts—“I can’t say.”

  Abe sat down, stretching out his long legs. The ground was cool, and the wetness of the morning dew soaked through his wool trousers. The scent of sage wafted up around him, a pleasant smell, dry and pungent.

  He looked around the encampment, a full regiment of cavalry, and he felt a chill of delight. He knew he was romanticizing, and yet he could not help it. The last of the fires had flickered down, wispy coils of smoke rising straight up in the still night air. Like spokes on a cartwheel, still forms lay around each of the fires, curled up asleep. At times one or two would sit up, then settle back down for a few final moments of rest.

  He caught a glimpse of a sentry, riding picket, slowly circling the encampment, whispering a song, a lovely tune popular with the Celts, who so eagerly volunteered for service with the cavalry.

  A few night birds sang, and the first of the morning birds were stirring as well, strange chirping and warbling calls. A shadowy ghost drifted past, an owl swooping into a stand of grass, then rising back up, carrying off its struggling prey.

  “That’s the steppes,” Togo said, “beautiful but deadly. It’s where I grew up. My uncle settled a thousand or more square miles abandoned during the wars. It’s part of the land that the general was talking about with them yesterday.”