“So . . . what shall we do?” General Ugla asked. “We have indeed gathered many warriors, but few are what we have . . . grown to rely on. And there are a number of unwarlike Hij—and even a sprinkling of lower-caste females!”
Halik waved at the fertile, wooded valley. “For now, we remain here—a short distance farther from the river,” he added with a touch of genuine humor. “We shall regain our strength and heal from our battles and the long, hungry march. There are food beasts in abundance and the climate is agreeable.” He looked at Ugla. “We shall turn the new warriors into what we want them to be, and let the worker Hij help rearm and equip us.”
“Then?” General Shlook asked. “We still cannot strike east. Only one ten thousand—one ‘division’”—he nodded at Niwa—“has muskets, and we have barely three tens of artillery pieces. Little enough ammunition for either.”
“No,” Halik agreed. “We cannot strike east. And I desire no further conflict with General Alden, or any of the Allied powers, in fact.” He looked searchingly at Niwa. “Can you convince them of that?”
“If you speak the truth, I will try,” Niwa promised, then frowned. “In spite of everything, they treated me well when I was their captive, and even released me back to you. I will not lie to them.”
“I speak the truth,” Halik assured.
“But they will ask why we tarry here, and prepare as for a fight.” Niwa speculated. “Where shall I tell them we mean to go?”
“Tell them that when my army is rested and whole again, I shall march west toward the regencies of Persia and Arabia, to rejoin our race. If the Allies leave us in peace for that, I shall . . . give my word that if any force does one day return this way from that direction, this army will not join it.”
Even Niwa, who knew Halik better than any being alive, was stunned by such a promise, and he stared at his Grik friend with wide eyes. “They will not believe that!” he finally managed. “If another Grik army comes this way, how can you not join with it?”
“I remain under the orders of General Esshk, First General of All the Grik. At present, I have no communication with him and must proceed based upon my understanding of his original intent. If you will recall, he never expected us to hold Ceylon, or even India. That was Kurokawa’s dream.” He hesitated. “It became mine for a time as well, as you know, but that doesn’t matter now. Our primary task, yours and mine, was to build and blood a new army that would be capable of defending the Sacred Lands. We have accomplished that task and must now preserve that army for its greater mission. Allowing it to be swept along with another host, under the command of another general who does not know our enemy would only waste all that we have accomplished.” He paused, thoughtful. “Just as when we first came to India, I am not subject to the command of any regent. If one attempts to exercise command over me or my army, I shall . . . decline.”
“And what if such a regent will not take no for an answer?”
Halik stared intently at Niwa, then Ugla and Shlook, fully conscious of the implications of what he’d decided. Warfare between Grik regencies was common; often arranged between the regents themselves as much for entertainment as for population control. Such wars of sport had been halted during the current emergency, but even if they hadn’t, it had never been the place of a “mere” general to instigate such a thing. Halik had been a “sport fighter” himself, before his elevation, but he’d never fought for his own entertainment and never intended to do so for others again. If he defied a Grik regent, it would be with all the skill and ruthlessness he’d honed against the Allies.
“Then I shall decline more vigorously,” Halik simply said.
• • •
Colonel Enaak of the 5th Ma-ni-laa Cavalry lounged casually atop his vicious, crocodilian me-naak and stared thoughtfully at the departing delegation from Halik’s army. Colonel Dalibor Svec of the “Brotherhood of Volunteers,” or the “Czech Legion” as they’d come to be called here just as universally as they had on the earth they came from, even though his ranks held more Lemurians than humans, was not so relaxed. His mount, called a kravaa, reflected his mood. It was as formidable looking as a me-naak, complete with a bony, horny head, but it was a herbivore, after all, and the me-naak kept it wary. Not afraid, Enaak suspected. The beasts were well matched in strength and temperament, and if kravaas was afraid of me-naaks, the carnivores would know it, and his and Svec’s cavalry could never operate together. Not afraid, he decided, but always . . . ready. He looked at Svec, the wild beard and long hair flowing in the breeze. He’s not afraid of anything—except maybe that we’ll make peace with Halik. His people had suffered a long time, forced to live in the cold, desolate mountains to the north while their enemy ruled this fertile, temperate land. But now that they had it, and Halik was leaving, he just couldn’t bring himself to accept that his war, at least, might be over at last. No, Enaak realized. His discomfort stems from his desire to chase Niwa and his party down to the riverbank and slaughter them all in plain sight of the Grik on the other side. If he did, there wasn’t a lot Enaak could do to stop him. Enaak was in nominal command of the five thousand cavalry tasked with “watching” Halik, but four thousand of those men and ’Cats belonged to Svec.
“I do not believe it!” Svec growled at last. He looked at Enaak. “You do not believe it! We should never have allowed them to escape, but should have destroyed them completely when we had the power to do so!”
Enaak nodded with some relief. At least Svec realized that five thousand cavalry weren’t sufficient to take on sixty thousand Grik by themselves. “There is a broader war, Col-nol Svec,” Enaak reminded. “It has grown cold here. Generals Aalden and Rolak must go where it still burns bright.”
“We have been abandoned by our friends before, when the Russians made peace with the Germans—and then turned on us! I have an all-too-familiar feeling—”
Enaak whirled to face him. “That is enough! I will not hear such mutterings from you again! We have not stopped our war with the Grik, and never will! We have certainly not abandoned you in their midst; we have helped you gain the land you craved so long and won’t turn against you—unless you turn against us first!” He continued glaring at the much larger man with his wide, amber eyes, his tail swishing in fury. When he spoke again, his tone was ice. “It is well-known that Imperials often settle disputes with a sword or pistol, on their dueling grounds. What is less known is that my people have a similar, if more infrequently invoked tradition of deadly challenge.”
Svec stared back. Enaak had grown good at reading human face moving, but Svec’s expression remained hidden behind his monstrous beard. Suddenly the man exploded into laughter. More furious now, Enaak whirled his me-naak to his company commanders still gathered behind him. “Fetch me a spear—anything, that I might use to challenge!” His cutlass would probably have worked as well as anything, but a spear was the traditional weapon and he was focused on proprieties just then. Svec held out a hand, trying to calm himself.
“No, no! Make no challenge! If you do, I shall not accept since I am in the wrong!”
Enaak looked back in consternation, and Svec visibly controlled his laughter and tried to explain. “I do not laugh at you, my friend. I laugh at myself, I think. I do not know. I laugh with relief perhaps?” He shook his head, growing serious. “My people have been twenty years fighting for this day, after the terror that brought us here.” He pointed at the Lemurian “Czechs” behind him. “My other people have been fighting even longer. They once had a civilization here unlike any other of your race, and it was destroyed by the Grik. It is understandable that our purposes and our fears have grown so intertwined.” He gestured at Niwa and his party who were climbing aboard the barge that would take them back across the river. “I don’t believe the Grik can change as much as that man has said. To give and keep a pledge? My heart will not let me imagine such a thing. Yet my mind has seen how these Grik have changed ho
w they fight, how they behave, and I have met this Halik myself. He is very dangerous, but yes, different as well. They have stopped eating prisoners and have left India as they agreed. I do not understand how that can be after all this time, but it is clearly so. I do not see how Halik can resist coming back with others of his kind, but we are rid of him for the time, and this land is rid of Grik. That is more than I ever expected to live to see.” He looked wistfully at his troopers. “It is . . . hard to stop fighting. Sometimes, the harder a thing has been to achieve, the harder it is to stop striving for it, even when you have it in your hand.” He looked back at Enaak. “The Brotherhood of Volunteers will start no fights with you—or Halik, as long as he does as he promised. But how will we be sure? If he does join another army and turn on us, or even if he does not, but another army comes, we must have warning!”
Enaak managed a grin. “We follow him, of course. We will take my Fifth and one of your regiments, and we will watch him until he is far from this land. General Aalden told him to expect that, after all, so we would break no pledge of our own. We’ll merely ride along and see the sights and ensure that he does not turn back. He can’t object to that! The rest of our force will wait for us here—and the garrison that was promised. Only when that is in place might we turn back, but we will always scout these approaches.” He looked squarely at Svec. “Keeping what we have achieved is something else to strive for.”
North Borno
Ensign Abel Cook and Imperial Midshipman Stuart Brassey sat in the shade of the shoreside trees with “King” Tony Scott and Captain I’joorka of the Khonashis, watching the ongoing effort to break up the shattered Japanese destroyer Hidoiame. The forward half of the ship still lay on its side up on the beach where it had been pushed after Fristar Home, her cables cut, had drifted ashore and smashed her like a bug. Salvage on that section had proceeded rapidly, and it now looked like a great, rusty carcass that had been picked over by iron hungry carrion eaters. Less had been done with the stern, still submerged a short distance away, although the “reserve” US Navy ship Salaama-Na had finally arrived from the East and would attempt to lift the wreck. Salaama-Na was a heavily armed, but otherwise unaltered Home. She and her High Chief, “Commodore” Sor-Lomaak, were ardent members of the Alliance and had fought valiantly to crush the invading Doms on New Ireland. Salaama-Na dominated the modest natural harbor, but many other ships were anchored there now, and an entire squadron of Nancys operated from hastily constructed facilities as well.
The city that had sprung up around the salvage project and the oil wells the Japanese had started by using slave labor from Fristar Home was clearly there to stay. It already had the largest concentration of people in all North Borno, boasting as many as eight or nine thousand, and it didn’t even have a name yet. King Scott’s people, a fascinating mix of Grik-like folk similar to Lawrence’s Sa’aarans and human descendants of Malay fishermen, had been joined by a growing collection of other clans of the seminomadic Khonashi tribe. Members of other tribes, even ancestral enemies such as the Akichi, had begun to appear, tentatively testing the promise of friendship and prosperity, but none had a tradition for naming the places they lived. Interestingly, however, there was a general impatience for a name to be announced for the new “Union” centered at Baalkpan that they’d proudly joined, and they didn’t understand the holdup.
Tony Scott sipped his fine Baalkpan beer and gestured past the labor on the beach and in the water nearby where his people were taking Hidoiame apart a piece at a time. All knew he was pointing at the long gallows erected in the space where Fristar’s people had been corralled. “A fine hangin, I’joorka,” he said to his Grik-like Khonashi war captain with satisfaction. “I think ever’body enjoyed it.”
“’Ould’a enjoyed it greater i’ us hanged all the Jaaphs!” I’joorka grumbled. He’d also made it clear that he thought hanging was too good for them and the prisoners should have received a more . . . imaginative execution.
Abel grimaced, looking at the six corpses still dangling several days after the event. Captain Kurita and his senior officers had earned their fate. They’d murdered prisoners of war, massacred a Lemurian village near what should’ve been Yokohama, and generally caused all kinds of havoc. But their atrocities here had been very immediate, and it had been all he could do, as Baalkpan’s representative, to keep the people from slaughtering all the Japanese survivors after the battle that destroyed their ship. Most had been moved to Baalkpan as prisoners of war, but the Khonashi had demanded justice. They had it coming, Abel acknowledged, but I didn’t enjoy it. Glancing at Stuart Brassey, he was pretty sure his friend felt the same.
“How was your meeting with Mr. Letts?” Abel asked, changing the subject, and Tony gave him a rueful look. His wife, a tiny dark-skinned woman with sharpened teeth and a severe expression that somehow remained beautiful, stepped close with her own mug of beer and sat beside him. As usual, she wore only a leather skirt.
“Scary,” he said with a glance at the woman. “I swear, I really did expect him to arrest my ass an’ carry me back to Baalkpan as a deserter.”
“Stupid,” the woman said, and Tony could only nod. He’d gone missing two years before on the Baalkpan pipeline cut, and it had been assumed that Walker’s coxswain, who’d suddenly developed an absolute terror of the water, had been eaten by a “super lizard.”
“I told you he wouldn’t do that,” Abel said, trying to ignore the naked breasts across from him. He’d gotten a lot better at that. “Silva did too. It’s not like you could’ve made it back on your own after I’joorka rescued you.” He gestured at Tony’s withered leg. “In the meantime, you did great work here. If it hadn’t been for you, we wouldn’t have all these new friends!”
Tony nodded again. He’d begun to look as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders after a very long time. “That’s what Mr. Letts said. I swear. I’d’ve hated to leave my new people here, not to mention my wife.” He straightened. “But I was ready to face the music. Just couldn’t keep hidin’ from my old pals anymore.” He looked down. “What few of ’em is left.”
“Well, you don’t have to hide anymore,” Stuart said firmly. “And now you’re ‘High Chief’ of the North Borno Home—or whatever you wind up calling it—and entitled to representatives at the congress in Baalkpan.”
“That’s so weird,” Tony said, and paused. “Mr. Letts says they’re leaning toward calling the Union the ‘United Homes,’ or something like that, but they’re gonna wait for Adar to get back before they take the vote. Everybody figures he ought’a be there.”
Brassy frowned. “He should have been there all along, if what I hear is true.”
Abel frowned too. “Maybe so,” he temporized, reluctant to criticize, “but he’ll be back soon enough on Amerika, with the wounded from Madagascar.” He looked wistful. “I can’t condemn him for being there when I wish I had been myself.”
“You may get your chance,” Tony speculated.
Abel shook his head, then smiled at I’joorka. “No, my next assignment—ours,” he stressed, including Stuart, “is to serve as liaison for the regiment I’joorka has raised when it moves to India. We’ll be watching General Halik. Not much chance for action there, I’m afraid.”
“I know where he’d rather we were sent!” Stuart prodded playfully, and Abel flushed. It was no secret he was sweet on Rebecca Anne McDonald, the Governor-Empress of the New Britain Isles. “Do you blame me for wanting to fight the Doms?” he demanded.
“Not at all—or for trying to remind the Governor-Empress you exist!”
Abel flushed even deeper. He doubted Rebecca needed any reminders; he wrote her often enough even if it probably took a month or more for his letters to arrive. Sometimes she even wrote back—but she hadn’t for a while now.
I’joorka grunted, licking his wicked teeth. “Us raise our regi’ent to aid our new country against the Griks. I don’t k
now the reason us is getting sent to not kill Griks. Us ought’a go to ’adagascar!”
“There is plenty of work to do in India,” Stuart said. “And surely you can imagine why we are reluctant to put you in direct contact with the Grik. Some of you do resemble them. Think how difficult it would be for supporting units, particularly aircraft, to tell friend from foe. It might be very risky.”
“Then let us kill the Dons,” I’joorka said simply. “None that look like us is killing they.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Abel agreed, his eyes going wide. Then he grinned. “And I’ll bet you’d scare the hell out of them! I’ll mention it to Mr. Letts and see what he says.” He turned to Tony. “In the meantime, you’re one of the newest Homes to join the Alliance, but with all the good steel you’re salvaging and the oil wells the Japs started, you’ll soon be one of the richest. What will you do with all your new wealth?”
Tony scratched his head. “Derned if I know. Khonashis don’t need much. No point in us tryin’ to build ships an’ add to the navy. From what I hear, there’s more ships bein’ built through the Alliance than they can easily crew.” He shrugged. “An’ folks here ain’t sailors.” He nodded at I’joorka. “They’re damn fine fighters, though. Even before them ’Cat drill instructors came up from Baalkpan to standardize our training, I’da stacked ’em up against any infantry there is, without firearms.”
Abel nodded. He’d seen their disciplined tactics firsthand. Tony’s help had a lot to do with that, but Abel was sure the Khonashi had already been a cut above and were, hands down, the most “civilized” Grik-like beings they’d ever met, including Lawrence’s Sa’aarans. He wondered if their long association with humans, as actual members of their tribe, had anything to do with that.
Straits of Hell Page 9