by Leo Champion
“He is proclaimed khan,” intoned an old Qing whose skins were lined with colored beads. He’d been introduced earlier to von Kallweit as an ‘ancestor’, a title that the Prussian advisor – now the senior man of the group advising the Anzing Horde – understood as some kind of senior shaman.
“He is proclaimed khan,” intoned the small assemblage of lesser ancestors, Qings who to von Kallweit’s eyes were no older than the first, but who did wear slightly fewer beads – or were they in fact jewels? – on the skins they were draped with.
“He is proclaimed khan,” intoned sixty bannermen – clan leaders and important relatives, von Kallweit understood. Loud enough for the horde gathered in front of them, a safe seven or eight kilometers from the American outpost, to hear.
“He is proclaimed khan!” fifteen thousand nomad warriors shouted, waving blades and jezzails in the air.
“And now,” von Kallweit said quietly to Axhar when the shouting had died on, “we move east. To the Vasimir Way, and through there to Chongdin.”
Away from this insignificant outpost, he thought. A few hundred old warriors, as he’d been saying from the start, could simply let the American construction crews starve to death.
Major Lavasseur would still be alive if he’d listened to that a day ago.
That Major Lavasseur had been killed on his first assignment would not look good for the fate of his deputy and babysitter, but the wrath of the Department was not a problem for now. Like a good Teuton, he’d compartmentalized that away into ‘problems for after the mission is accomplished’. He’d written the report, it would be uploaded when there was a clear signal, it was not something to worry about anytime soon.
“No,” said Axhar. “Is it not the same for you, chief guard-warrior of the Red-White-Blue and now the Red-White-Blue’s new envoy? Tradition demands it! When a khan, or a chief, dies in battle? His scion must first avenge him.”
“Avenge him,” said von Kallweit while he thought stupid eatie, “by fulfilling his mission. By hurting the Red-White-Blue. Spoils await in the Chongdin Empire!”
“Honor and tradition come ahead of spoils,” said Axhar.
There were murmurs that von Kallweit understood to be disagreement, from some of the gathered senior chiefs.
Axhar whirled toward those chiefs, who were lean and slim but not so much as the new khan.
“Who says my father should not be avenged? Face me and say you care not for honor, for tradition, for sacred duty! But face me with a weapon in your hand when you say that!”
There was silence. Chiefs and bannermen lowered their gazes.
Axhar son of Tenzhen, new khan of the Anzing Horde, turned back to von Kallweit, who didn’t lower his own gaze.
He didn’t take his hand from where it had semi-consciously closed around the machine-pistol slung in front of him, either. Axhar might have been the fastest warrior in eight generations, but if he tried to take out his anger on his adviser? Then it probably wouldn’t end well for anyone, but the khan would be the first to get it.
For several moments both the German and the Qing were silent, looking at each other.
“You are brave,” said Axhar.
von Kallweit nodded slightly. Of course he was brave; he was a German officer. It was in his genes to be.
“But we follow tradition. Kill these ones. Tell me how we can best kill these ones. Is that not your role?”
Yes, thought von Kallweit, the eatie had a point. And the sooner this place was taken, the sooner the horde could move on to real objectives.
Being impatient, on the other hand, would be a great way to end up like Lavasseur, Dumont, Tenzhen and the rest of them lying shredded in front of the outpost gates.
“That is my role,” von Kallweit agreed. “To advise you.”
“Then we take this place.” Axhar raised his voice so it would carry across the horde. “We take this place!”
* * *
“You think they’re going to go away?” Croft asked Dunwell, watching the assembled horde through his binoculars. The midday sun glinted off thousands of weapons.
Someone out there had made a good guess of what kind of weapons Hubris had, and an understanding of what the 81mm mortars’ capabilities were. The maximum effective range of the mortars was about three and a half miles; the nomad horde had regrouped at about five.
“Tell you what,” said Atkinson. “Bet you they’re not going to send another delegation.”
“Williams,” said Croft, “would you please get Sergeant Robinson for me?”
He missed Mullins; the man sometimes had his attitude issues but he was smart and he’d have liked his personal RTO’s thoughts on the situation.
Bravo Three’s RTO had been absolutely correct in seeing the nomads as a threat, after all. He wondered where the hell the guy was, out with Newbauer, the doctor and First Squad. None of them had been among the hostages with Gardner, after all, and the French advisor had initially thought – apparently from interrogating Gardner – that Newbauer was the one in charge at the fort.
It was probable they’d been killed by one of the other bands, but Hill, Ciampa and Lennon were among his better NCOs, smart and resourceful men all three. He wouldn’t write them off just yet, but he’d put them out of his mind for now.
Robinson appeared at the top of the blockhouse and came to attention.
“You called, sir?” the company field intelligence man said.
“You see ‘em,” said Croft with a gesture. You didn’t need binoculars to make out the ten-thousand-plus massed figures in the distance.
“Wish I didn’t, sir. Can’t drop some bombs on ‘em all bunched up like that?” The balding young sergeant gestured with a thumb over his shoulder at where the blockhouse’s three mortars sat on their bipods and baseplates.
“Too far. Just too far. Someone out there may know his shit. Since you’re the next-best thing we’ve got to an S-2 here, I’m hoping you know yours.”
“They’re not going away,” said Robinson flatly. “That one surrounded by the guys with the flags? Khan and his bannermen. You killed him, maybe there’s going to be a fight to see who’s the new khan.”
“Maybe?” asked Ortega. “Think we might be able to get them killing each other?”
“Dueling, if that. Depends on the horde, sometimes it’s always the oldest son. There’s a hundred or more distinct hordes and their cultures vary.”
“So they’re gathered to decide on a new khan,” said Croft. “Or just declare him. Whatever. Then what are they going to do?”
Robinson looked away.
Shit, thought Croft. The look on the field intelligence man’s face told him all he needed to know, confirmed the little bit he’d read himself about the honor-driven nomad culture.
“First thing they have to do if they want any respect from the bannermen,” Robinson said to the gathered officers and senior NCOs, “is avenge the old one. Sir, those guys might have backed off a few miles? But they’re not going much further until they’ve taken this place and killed us all.”
* * *
It had been a hard walk through the sun for Kaggs and his thirty-five free Gangers, and taking a break just short of Diamond North, as the sun was setting, had been a mixed idea to the Gangers. Some of them were tired; most thought that a break could wait until they’d reached the ultimate destination only a couple of miles away now, with its shelter and provisions.
There’d been discussion and a few people had looked like they were going to mouth off, so Kaggs rasied his M-25, casually covering those people.
“Here’s why we stop,” he had said. “You think we’re the only group out here? There’s other Gangers, there’s straight-edgers, and there might be combat engineers. Or bugs. Interested in the same shit we want from here. You want to walk blindly into them? So we wait, while a couple of men go forward. Then we move.”
Now, as Longneck Simon and a tiny curly-red-haired fireplug of a man called Big Willie finished their report to hi
m, Kaggs was glad he’d been cautious.
A nomad band was there, had broken into some of the buildings. From the zaks outside them – assuming one Qing per zak – Simon and Willie estimated forty or fifty.
That was bad, but they’d seemed to be spread out, split between different buildings they were looting. Qings mostly only had jezzails.
“Boss,” said Shenko, “I say we consider talking to them.”
“We kill them, we can take their shit,” Kaggs pointed out the obvious. “Especially their zaks. You think I want to walk to the bushlands?”
“Varren Province and Suret are one option,” said Shenko. “Other one is we link up with the Euros we all know are in charge of these nomads, and sign on with them.”
“There’s a human there?” Kaggs asked Simon.
Simon shook his head. “Didn’t see one. Might have been.”
“We see any humans there, we try and take ‘em alive so we can talk,” Kaggs decided. “Happy, Shenko? What I want is those zaks, some real food and a bunk tonight.”
Shenko made a slightly affirmative grunt.
“Now, we’ve got about one real weapon for every two men,” said Kaggs. Of which half were their former owners’ personal holdout guns, a range of totally different weapons, all small, none with more than a couple of reloads. The men who hadn’t been lucky enough to score even those, had knives and sharpened spades.
“But everyone has stabbers,” he went on. Forty or fifty of the Qings? But if you got in close, after dark…
“What kind of sentries did they have?” he asked the two scouts.
“None I could see,” said Longneck Simon. “And we got in close.”
“Two hundred yards, easy,” agreed Willie. He ran his hand over the scope. “Definitely nobody on the watch tower, either.”
“What’s there out here to fuck with ‘em if their tribes are united?” Shenko said.
Kaggs nodded firmly.
“So we get in close after dark and jump ‘em. Sneak in, mob action with blades, kill as many as we can by surprise. Then, when we’re in among ‘em, we’ll have the advantage with our guns. They might have better range than our pistols, but it won’t matter at close distance.”
There were murmurs of agreement from Shenko, Simon, Willie and Vishni.
Kaggs smiled to himself. Hadn’t that guy said that if it weren’t for the impulse control issues – that had admittedly landed him into the Black Gangs, but maybe he’d learned from that – he might be officer material someday?
“I like it,” said Shenko, which decided the matter.
“Then pass the word. We’ll wait until it’s fully dark and head in.”
* * *
It hadn’t been the rushed fight Kaggs had expected; it had been a slaughter, killing most of the Qings while they slept or fought to wake. He’d only lost three men, one shot through the throat and two others dying, cut so badly there was no way they would live.
For that…
“Fifty-three,” said Shenko. “Cleaned out the last of ‘em. There’s fifty-three.”
Kaggs’ biggest fear had been that some of the Qings would be in the blockhouse, really just a raised bunker but a strongpoint regardless, of the depot. That they’d hole up in there and snipe; winkling them out without breaching charges or grenades would have been a bitch.
So he’d detailed three solid men to go straight for the blockhouse door and keep them from shutting it, only to find the alien nomads had all preferred, like any humans, to sleep in bunks. Not one had been in there.
“And guns?”
“Enough for everyone now,” said Vishni. “All the aliens had their muskets, and about a third had revolvers. The old-fashioned kind, but they’ll kill and there’s plenty of ammo.”
“Kopf.” Kaggs pointed at that man. “I want you to line up sentries. Two men on top of the blockhouse at all times. Another two on the approaches. Enforce it how you like, if I catch a man sleeping or absent I’ll cut your nuts off while you scream.”
“Clear,” said the big Kopf reluctantly. Probably wanted to sleep.
“Don’t want anyone jumping us like we did these guys,” Kaggs explained, because to some people you simply had to explain the obvious.
“Vishni. Gather up all the guns, split them up. Everyone has at least one firearm and ammo for it. OK?”
“Boss.”
“Let’s see what we got here,” Kaggs told Simon and Shenko.
Two of the moons were up right now, and there was a good view of the waystation, which consisted of about thirty prefabricated buildings laid out in a grid pattern, the center of the wide central crossroads being the blockhouse.
The blockhouse itself wasn’t exactly the fort they’d sweated for a month to build – he wondered if the rising nomads had taken that place? Hopefully they had, and were leveling it – but this was a respectable square structure, about fifteen feet a side by twenty high, two stories and an observation deck with a flagpole they’d ripped the flags down from. Solid concrete, there were firing ports in every side and the door was firm steel.
Kaggs made a note to himself to get a couple of bunks or at least mattresses put in there. If they were going to be here for more than a night, he wanted to himself sleep in the most secure place possible.
Some of the surrounding buildings were empty of everything; others were just bunkhouses, some of them with taps and showers – fitted to the nearby well – installed. The storehouses were in the center of the building, with locked and heavy steel doors the nomads must have had to put some work into busting open.
But the tribe had busted them open, had looted and spread themselves through the sheds and mostly the bunkhouses where they’d died.
Kaggs had heard from some of the men who’d helped build and provision this place, what was in there. Food and gear, primarily. But he wanted to see for himself what exactly they’d taken. It looked like the nomad tribe had spoiled a bit of it in their looting.
“Good plan,” said Simon, whose face was spattered with Qing blood he’d made no effort to wash or wipe off, even though water supply had now stopped being a problem. The smile on his face earlier implied he’d enjoyed the up-close killing, maybe even gotten off from it. “You had a good plan. I thought we’d lose more than three guys easily.”
“And we got fifty-three zaks to ride,” said Shenko. “One for every man and twenty more to carry supplies. Good call, Billy. We’re geared up and we can ride to Varren Province.”
“I think we’re going to take a couple of days’ rest,” Kaggs decided. “This is a nice place. We’ll see if anyone else shows up here.”
* * *
“Kandin-dak and safety,” Newbauer was urging the group on from the front. “Diamond North and safety! Move, forwards, damn you all!”
“Doesn’t lack energy, does he?” muttered WO2 Senechal to Mullins as they trudged through the night.
Mullins was too exhausted, too exhausted and thirsty, to do more than grunt in reply. His mouth was dry, his canteen empty and the old trick – learned on Chauncy – of putting a pebble in your mouth to get the saliva flowing only went so far.
If the lieutenant-colonel was thirsty, it didn’t show in his energy level. But he probably wasn’t thirsty; Mullins had spotted him refilling his canteen more than once between breaks, taking from the very finite supply in the tank-cart Leon Smith and three other men were presently sweating to drag across the rough dry ground.
Mullins trudged, wishing he could ditch the radio. With the jamming, it was twenty-five pounds of solid useless – but it was also his purpose here, and if the jamming stopped then maybe they could get some purpose here. And there was a jamming station either at or near Diamong North; from studying the map Hill had had, there looked to be a rocky outcrop just a couple of miles to the north that would hide one quite well.
Blow the jamming, and they had grenades, and the radio might be of some limited use again in this area. And Newbauer would probably shoot his ass if he droppe
d it anyway, he thought morbidly.
How the hell had he gotten into this? Why had he gotten drunk that night? The bastard responsible for it was dead, but he still had most of an enlistment to get through, assuming they even survived the next couple of days.
Mullins didn’t like the part where they were heading to the fort, which had to have attracted major nomad attention. Given his wishes he’d have headed east for the Vasimir Way or the mountain range it sat across. West, deeper into their territory, was insane. But Diamond North made sense in itself; supplies there that they could use. Possibly an intact well.
His feet ached in their boots, one step after another through the brightly moonlit night. With three moons in the sky, it never seemed to get really pitch-dark on Dinqing. It beat walking through the hot sun, and since they’d come across Janja’s group yesterday they’d had a couple of tents for the extra people to sleep under. The poisoned Black Gangers wouldn’t need them.
Up ahead was Dr. Cramer, who was walking with Jorgenson and WO1 Kennedy. The doctor had taken the loss of her assistant hard, but successfully getting Janja out of his funk appeared to have given her some motivation again. She of all the group was probably having the hardest time, but if she was then she wasn’t letting it show.
Corporal Alvarez and a couple of others were with them, mixed in with a few of the more enthusiastic gangers. Lennon and his team were at the rear, keeping anyone – a couple of the Gangers might have come close to trying – to drop out, and urging the rotating crews pulling the water cart and the supplies cart.
Now, as through his tiredness Mullins marched, Corporal Lennon came up to him.
“Muls, you see our friend?” he asked in a low voice.
“Harder or I’ll flog some of you!” Newbauer snarled from the lead, gesturing with his whip.
Mullins rolled his eyes.
“I don’t know what he’s on, man. I honestly do not know what kind of stimulants that man is taking, but I wish he’d share.”
“Doctor said he’s always been like that,” said Lennon. “But not what I’m talking about. I mean the friend about a mile away on our five-o’clock. The one who’s been following us for the last half an hour. The one who is no doubt marking a trail that will attract his friends.”