The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

  Rukkh got back on his feet, pushed forward, and helped turn the boat back over.

  The front of the boat was stove in. Some of the oars had been smashed. With cries of disgust the men stood back from the useless thing. Another thud came, and they all looked up. The stone was visible for a fraction of a second, a dark mass poised against the night, and then it fell on the shoreline harmlessly, throwing up a big splash in the shallows.

  From then on the evacuation became much more chaotic.

  Toshak and Graedon had organized a regiment of donkey carts that ferried rocks from the seapond walls down to the line of trebuchets that had been set up on the plain. Two or three stones a minute rained down on the nervous men inside the shield wall. Most missed, but the occasional hits produced spectacular carnage.

  As soon as he was aboard Perch, Admiral Heuze took steps to regain control. Perch was a swift frigate and her captain, Hujuk, was an able type. The other ships in the bay were Shark, another frigate, and Grampus, the smallest of the great ships, in the same class as the Growler.

  Waiting for him was a private message from Pukh. The situation was not quite as good as he had hoped. Captain Kuhgo had mutinied, or something very close to mutiny. On hearing that Heuze was stranded on the beach, he had declared an emergency and taken the big ship Crusher out on her own.

  There was some sentiment in the fleet in Kuhgo's favor. Nebbeggebben was rumored to be considering siding with Kuhgo.

  Meanwhile, aboard Anvil Captain Pukh had put Sub-Admiral Geppugo into irons because Geppugo had tried to take control and move the entire fleet back out to sea. Geppugo had declared that they should abandon the attempt to colonize the monkeys' land and go south to the wider oceans and search for easier opportunities.

  Heuze's blood boiled when he read all this. That treacherous swine Geppugo would go to the priests at the soonest opportunity, while Kuhgo would hang, as soon as a court-martial could be held.

  To calm himself Heuze bathed, put on clean clothes, and took some dinner with a mug of mulled wine. He sent for Biswas to keep him company.

  Biswas came in, also wearing clean clothes and with the blood washed from his face and hair.

  "There you are, Filek. Have some wine. Pretty horrible work you've been at I expect."

  Filek took the wine eagerly. He had long since become immune to the horrors of his work, but the sheer volume of it on this day had been overwhelming. He had sewed dozens of men back together, three men dying even as he operated on them.

  The wine was sweet and warm, and he knocked back a couple of mouthfuls and enjoyed the sensation it produced.

  "We have much to thank Captain Pukh for, my friend." The admiral had dropped his voice to his conspiratorial whisper.

  Filek leaned forward to listen carefully.

  "Geppugo tried to move the fleet south, abandoning us."

  Filek swallowed. Such treachery was hard to fathom. "The priests will rip his heart out of his chest."

  "Only after they have questioned him for days. It will not be an easy death for Geppugo."

  They sipped wine, thinking quietly.

  "And what of ourselves. What are we going to do?" Filek wondered.

  "Isn't it obvious?"

  Filek shook his head. "No. This was a terrible defeat."

  "My friend, how many times was Aeswiren defeated before he won the throne?"

  "Thrice, of course."

  "Well, our men are soldiers of Shasht. They will fight much better next time."

  "Next time?"

  "We will regain our strength and make another landing. This time we will choose a place that is farther away from a monkey town. We underestimated them. I will not allow us to do that again."

  "General Raltt did his best."

  "Perhaps." Heuze did not tell Filek what Raltt's fate was to be. "It was Uisbank's fault mostly. The early attack had no subtlety to it. He simply assumed the Blitzers could smash their way in. They killed an ungodly number of monkeys, but they could not break their lines."

  "What do you think became of General Uisbank?"

  Heuze shrugged and drank off the last of his wine.

  "Frankly, I hope they roasted him alive. He was unforgivably stupid."

  Heuze made no mention of his own mistake, riding in showily in his barge in full view of the enemy. They had struck at him just as they'd struck at Uisbank, and but for Captain Pukh they might have taken him, too. He had already decided that he would never step foot on this accursed land again until it was pacified and the monkeys were no more.

  Filek was secretly appalled at the thought of another battle. They had lost more than a thousand dead and many more would die of their wounds in the next few days. He sipped the wine, but now he scarcely tasted it.

  There came a knock, and they heard excited voices on deck. Feet were thundering in the corridors. The door shot open.

  "Sir, we have sighting of another fireship. Sir."

  "What?" Heuze bolted up out of his chair, sending his mug clattering across the floor.

  They ran on deck. Heuze jumped up to the rigging.

  "Off the starboard side, coming from the harbor. Same kind as chased out the fleet before."

  Heuze stared at the dirty little cog, dimly visible in the moonlight as it came around the end of the mole.

  Orders rang out across the three ships, and crews hurried to raise the anchors and set sails. Within ten minutes Perch was under way and began to tack out of the inner bay. The cog was slower than the elegant frigate and would never catch them.

  The fleet's boats, filled with exhausted men, pulled after them.

  Shark came around quickly, her captain wasting no time, and left the boats in her wake.

  Grampus threw down lines for the nearest boats to take up, then turned and set sail. But she was not a good ship in light winds and was slow in getting under way.

  By the time Grampus was moving seaward at more than a crawl, the evil little cog with her black-daubed sails was astride the route out of the bay. Captain Fulz ordered Grampus's catapults readied, and men with oars stood by to repulse the cog if she came alongside.

  On the next tack Grampus turned, ahead of the cog, but she was approaching on an intersecting course. Fulz trimmed sail, slowed, turned back. The cog matched his maneuver and, with the wind in her favor, came on quickly.

  At the last moment Fulz tacked again, the terrified sailors racing through the changes of sail.

  For a long moment it looked as if they had succeeded, but then a puff of wind picked the small ship up and thrust her forward. The sharp ram drove home directly into Grampus's bow and the bigger ship shuddered all the way down to her beam ends.

  Men hurled themselves down into the cog to fight the mots, but it was already too late. Flames were licking up from the hold, the fumes of paraffin caught with a dull boom, and a blue ball of fire rose and ignited Grampus's main foresail. Flames engulfed the cog, and the men were forced to dive overboard and abandon her, still held fast to Grampus's side by the ram.

  Ropes and yards were alight above, and tackle fell with a crash as the sails burned. Grampus became a scene out of hell, as hundreds hurled themselves into the sea to avoid the spreading conflagration.

  Shark and Perch returned, and every boat was summoned from the fleet hovering outside the bay. But nothing could save Grampus herself, and she burned to the waterline, while the boats continued plying to and from the shore bringing off the army.

  Unfortunately the process was slowed by the long trips back and forth to the fleet, waiting outside the bay. By the early light of dawn there were still two hundred men trapped on the beach.

  The enemy moved forward immediately, and a hail of arrows and stones fell on the doomed rear guard. Then for a moment it stopped, and a voice called clearly and loudly for their surrender, in perfect Shashti.

  But the warriors of Shasht did not surrender.

  There was a long moment of hesitation, and then the enemy moved forward with a rush. The fight was s
hort and horrid and ended with the mots overwhelming the ring of men, pulling them down while dozens of spears thrust home.

  They already had sullen, uncooperative prisoners. They had decided to take no more of them.

  Out on the fleet the disaster was still being tallied up.

  "I have a list of sixteen hundred dead and eighteen hundred with wounds."

  "Does that count the women from Grampus!"

  "No. Nor the women from Growler."

  Heuze stared across his stateroom at the eerily beautiful rug on the wall. The bright ochre birds chased the evil-looking beetles in such a merry manner. He felt a strong urge to scream and smash things.

  Two yellow tops had summoned him to visit Nebbeggebben aboard Hammer, the royal heir's flagship. The Hand were waiting for him over there.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Simona was shocked by how many bodies there were, laid out in neat rows along the top of the beach. Mostly they were men, stripped of armor, weapons, even their boots and sandals, but among them were the women who had drowned. Many had a strangely peaceful look about them, as if they'd died in their sleep and not drowned in the cold waters of an alien land. The men, on the other hand, were often open-eyed, faces still imprinted with the final agony, exhibiting every kind of wound. Simona had often thought about the things her father dealt with in his work; here she confronted it. It was simply horrifying.

  She was violently ill on the sand after the first disemboweled corpse, but after that she just paused and squeezed her eyes shut when she saw something particularly awful. Thru Gillo helped her with a steadying hand at the worst times.

  It was the strangest day in her life, she thought, and she'd seen some strange ones indeed, since that fishing boat had plucked her from the sea.

  All her life had been lived inside a bubble of safety, until Filek Biswas had been cast into the expeditionary force. Aboard the Growler she'd learned a lot of awful lessons. And then when she'd tried to kill herself a whole new set of lessons had been laid before her.

  It was the first daytime she'd been outside since that rescue. The sky felt huge, the land enormous and green. The city was both familiar and yet alien, with tall houses of stone and slate roofs, but all so strangely designed compared to classical Shasht.

  "How do you keep the streets so clean?" she'd said to Thru, as they went through the city. There were eyes everywhere, but in her hooded cloak, she drew little interest from the passing throngs.

  "In the city, I don't know, it's probably someone's job. I don't know if a Guild controls it or not. In the villages everybody helps clean up all the time. A few lazybones are always a problem, but mors are quick to let them know about their bad ways."

  "Where are the slaves?" she said next.

  He stared at her blankly. She had to explain what a "slave" was.

  "We have no slaves."

  She was stunned into silence the rest of the way. Thru asked her several times if she was all right, because it wasn't like her to be so quiet.

  And now, standing on the top of the beach, she understood that the battle had been a disaster for the colony expedition. She had never imagined that the men of Shasht could be defeated like this.

  She looked at every face, searching for Filek or Rukkh, pointing out the handful of men wearing purple or red tunics, signs of high rank.

  "I'm sorry that you had to see this," said Thru, as they came to the end of the ordeal. Neither Rukkh nor Filek was among the dead, for which she was endlessly thankful.

  "My father was not there, nor was the admiral, so either they are still in the water or they got away."

  "There are some bodies still afloat, but not many now. Later, if you like, we can look at them."

  "Thank you. I would like to. Not knowing is terrible. And thank you for being so kind to me, Thru Gillo. You have helped me enormously in this ordeal."

  She took his hand and pressed it between hers. It was like a man's hand, virtually identical except for the smooth fur that covered the back of hand and fingers.

  "You are not responsible for any of this," he said. "You deserve our help."

  She turned back to the dead and muttered a prayer for their souls. Take care of your worshipers Great God! Keep their souls warm by your fire, Orbazt Subuus!

  "Maybe the fleet will go home now," she said, convinced the colony was utterly defeated.

  "Would you like that? To go home?"

  "I don't know. My father told me that if we went home the entire colony would be sold into slavery. The Emperor would have no mercy on failures.

  "It's horrible," she said through clenched teeth. "So many dead; why did there have to be war?"

  "I don't know. Why did your people's ships come here?"

  Simona gave a sad shrug. "The Emperor decreed that we should send out colony missions into the world. Our land is worn-out. It is not like this in Shasht." She gestured to the trees that covered the headland, recalling the sun-baked rocky hills of home.

  "How many dead are there of my people?" she said after a moment.

  "Two thousand, one hundred thirty-three, so far."

  It was like a physical blow. More than two thousand dead. On top of the plague, it would have reduced them by more than a third.

  "And, how many of your own folk?"

  "Seventeen hundred eighty dead, and more who will die of their wounds."

  She grimaced. What a slaughter for such a narrow, stony beach. "It is all so stupid, so horrible. Why did they send us here to destroy you?"

  He looked away for a moment.

  "We thought that was what Man would always do. In our memory, Man the Cruel looms large."

  "What do you mean by Man-the-Cruel?"

  He looked away again, remembering the piled-up heads at Bilauk.

  "It is difficult to talk about. I will show you the Great Book. It tells the story as we understand it."

  "The Assenzi said you were raised up by the ancient men of Highnoth. Long, long ago, before the ice. The priests teach us that the Great God took over the world and vomited up the first men. The men then vomited up the first woman, and they took turns with her and she brought forth many children and they are the ancestors of the Shashti people."

  Thru's eyebrows lofted as he listened to her.

  "We have never heard of the Great God. We listen to the Spirit, but that message is a gentle one."

  Simona gave a somber little laugh.

  "That is not the way of Orbazt Subuus, He Who Eats!"

  Thru's eyebrows bobbed up and down.

  "This god of yours is filled with rage. So are your people. We wonder what they have done that has made them so angry. If this god is such a great god, why does he need to kill anyone who forsakes him? Why does he need anyone to kill anyone for that matter? Why should such a great god demand to be worshiped? If he is the great god, then he will be worshiped anyway, surely?"

  She laughed. "You should be allowed to put those questions to the priests yourself. I, for one, would love to witness that encounter!"

  But she knew that the only encounter the priests would accept would involve tying poor Thru over an altar and ripping his beating heart from his chest as an offering for He Who Eats.

  "Come," said Thru, "the Assenzi wish to speak with you."

  They made their way back to the south gate. The mots and brilbies who held the allotments were all at work repairing the damage done during the fighting. Simona was unused to being outdoors in ordinary society, and seeing this army of mots and mors at work she was struck again by the enormous difference with Shasht society. At home this work would have been done by slaves.

  "What will you do with all of us?" she asked Thru at one point.

  "Who do you mean?"

  "The prisoners." Earlier she had examined the men taken prisoner. There were almost a hundred of them, and they'd been herded briefly into a courtyard so she could look down at them from a window above without being seen. The experience with Uisbank had convinced her captors that it
was not wise to allow her to be seen by any of the men.

  "I don't know," said Thru, honestly. "I expect the Assenzi will have an idea. Maybe they will take you to Highnoth."

  "Where is that? You mentioned this place before."

  "It is many days' march north of here, hundreds of miles."

  "And that is where the Assenzi live?"

  "Yes."

  "What would they do to us there?"

  "I don't know exactly. But the men are not cooperative and we cannot send them back, because they would only be given new weapons, so we may have to kill them."

  That shook her for a moment. He sounded so calm about the impending slaughter.

  "I suppose," she said quietly. And she asked herself, what other choice did they have, than to keep the men chained up for the rest of their lives? "What about imprisoning them?"

  "That is being considered. Some grumble that your people have already cost ours too much. Easier to kill them and bury them and make some field fertile."

  "And what do you think, Thru Gillo?"

  "I would send you all to Highnoth."

  On the way back through the city streets Simona observed the city up close for the first time. Shutters painted in bright red or brown were serried up and down the streets.

  The squares and plazas were all small by Shashti standards, but the buildings were graceful and rarely overbearing. The Guild Hall was a large place, with turrets and towers of a most antique appearance to her eyes. There were a lot of trees and shrubs in the gardens at intersections. It was very unlike Shasht in that way.

  The royal palace was almost invisible from within the city, since it was a fortified extension of the city wall. She knew that it was a palace because she'd been told, but the corridors and rooms she'd seen had been small and plainly furnished. But she had also seen works of art hanging on the walls of important rooms. Incredible pieces, often strong in color, that she knew would fetch a fortune at auction in Shasht City.

  She was ushered into the room where she had met the Assenzi. All three were present. Utnapishtim held out a tiny scroll.