After the downfall

by Harry Turtledove

  Swoosh! Thump…Boom! The catapults couldn't fling shells anywhere near so fast as a battery of 105s. They didn't have so many shells to fling, either. Hasso was painfully aware that they wouldn't have any more for weeks once they ran dry here. Everything rode on this battle.

  Swoosh! Thump!..Boom! That was a good one. It burst just above the Lenelli on the left, and knocked down four of them. A 105 round couldn't have done much more. And it panicked the knights who were still fighting. They decided all at once that they'd had enough. Going up against Grenye savages was one thing. Facing death from out of the air? That was something else. They rode off, too.

  Seeing them retreat, the knights on the right also pulled back. The Lenello archers who'd come up behind them now screened their withdrawal. Well, the archers tried. The catapults outranged them, though. Three or four shells bursting among them sent them on their way.

  "You know what we just did?" Rautat said as the archers withdrew.

  "We beat 'em." Hasso knew it damn well.

  But Rautat was going to make his joke whether Hasso gave him a straight line or not. "We just circumcised the big blond pricks, that's what," he said, and went off in gales of laughter. All the natives who heard him broke up, too. And Hasso laughed along. Why the hell not? To a winner, everything was funny.

  Along with the Bucovinans, Hasso tramped the field after the battle. They were looking for loot, and to finish off or capture surviving Lenelli. He was looking for faces he knew. He soon found one, too: there lay Mertois, castellan of Castle Svarag. A pike had punched through his thigh, and he must have bled to death.

  "So many dead horses," Rautat said sadly. "What a waste." At least a hundred of them lay twisted right in front of the Hedgehogs' position. They'd done what their riders told them to do, and they'd paid for it. So had a lot of the men who spurred them forward. The Lenelli didn't know what they were up against till too late.

  There lay King Bottero. Bucovinans had already stolen his fine sword, his helm with the gold circlet, his gilded mailshirt. Despite the byrnie, he'd taken a lot of wounds. He didn't have a son. The succession in Drammen was liable to get messy. That was good news for Bucovin, too.

  And there lay Velona, her golden hair all sodden with blood. None of the Bucovinans had taken the sword from her hand. They knew who she was, and they knew what she was, and they didn't want anything to do with her.

  They weren't so dumb.

  Even Rautat hung back a couple of steps as Hasso knelt beside her. "So that's what she looks like up close," the underofficer said. "If you like great big blondes, I guess she's pretty."

  Hasso hardly heard him. He eased the sword from his one-time beloved's grip, then reached out to touch her hand. When he did, he frowned. She should have been cooler than that if she were dead. His index and middle fingers found that spot on her wrist by the thumb side of the tendons. Her pulse was slow, but it was there. "Jesus!" he muttered: another deity missing in action here.

  "What?" Rautat said.

  "She's not dead," Hasso said. "She's just knocked out."

  Rautat started to draw his belt knife to remedy that. Then he jammed it back into the sheath. "I don't dare," he said, "not against the goddess." He took off on the dead run.

  Hasso would have stopped him if he had tried to kill Velona. He wondered why, when she'd come so close to killing him. He also wondered what the hell he was going to do with her — to her? — when she came to. He didn't fear the goddess the way Rautat did, which probably meant he didn't understand the situation as well as the native did.

  Cautiously feeling, he found a knot on the side of her head. He nodded to himself. Going into battle without a helmet was great for heartening your friends and frightening your foes. When it came to actually fighting… not so good. He probed a little harder. If she had a fractured skull, she might not wake up — which might prove a relief for everybody but her.

  She grimaced and tried to twist away from him. She wasn't deeply out, then. That was a good sign, or maybe a bad one, depending on how you looked at things. Then her eyes opened. For a moment, she had no idea who he was, who she was herself, or what the hell was going on. Hasso sympathized. He'd been down that road himself the autumn before. A concussion was not your friend.

  She blinked, and blinked again. Her mouth set. Reason was coming back. Those blue, blue eyes found his. "You!" she said, her voice a hoarse croak.

  "Afraid so." Lenello came rustily from his lips. He wasn't used to hearing it without a rough Bucovinan accent any more, either. "Want some water?"

  "Please."

  He had a jug on his belt. He took it off and held it to her lips. She drank and drank. "Better?" he asked when she'd almost emptied it.

  "A little, maybe." She needed two tries to sit up. When she looked around and saw Bucovinans roaming the field and Lenelli and their chargers down and dead in windrows, she looked first humanly astonished and then more than humanly outraged. "What did you do to us? What did we do to you to deserve… this?"

  "Well, trying to kill me makes a pretty good start." Hasso worked hard to remember the past tenses that had given him so much trouble; he needed them here. "I loved you, and you tried to cook my brains for me."

  He watched her gaze sharpen. If she could have slain him right there, she would have done it. But she couldn't even start; it was like watching an archer try to shoot in a driving rainstorm. "My wits are all scrambled," she muttered.

  "I believe it," Hasso said. "You are going to have headaches like you don't believe. Takes days, maybe weeks, to get over." He tapped the side of his own head. "I know."

  "What did you do?" Velona repeated. "The flying thunder… That forest of spears…" She shuddered, then winced, plainly wishing she hadn't. "And none of our magic worked. We've had to deal with renegades, but this…! How the goddess must hate you!"

  "I take my chances," Hasso said, which shocked her. Well, too bad. It was too bad, in too many ways, but he couldn't do anything about any of them now. He continued, "I tell you something else, too. You need to remember it. All Lenelli need to remember it."

  "Go on," she said. "I'm listening. Right now, I don't have much choice."

  "Simple. Easy. Four words — Grenye are people, too." In Bucovinan, it would have been one word. "People," Hasso said again. "Strong enough to stand against Lenelli. Isn't that a big part of what makes people?"

  Velona's chin came up. "Little black-haired mindblind savages." Cutting through a couple of hundred years' worth of Lenello arrogance wouldn't be easy or quick.

  Hasso was about to remind her that King Zgomot's so-called savages had whipped the living snot out of her kingdom twice running. Before he could, someone behind him said, "I didn't know she would be so beautiful."

  He whirled. There stood Drepteaza and, several paces behind her and looking scared, Rautat. Hasso felt almost as if she'd caught him being unfaithful with Velona. He glanced at the goddess on earth. She looked like hell: haggard, battered, bruised, and filthy, her hair all matted with blood. All the same, the essence remained, and Drepteaza saw down to it.

  Velona was looking from one of them to the other, too. And she also knew what she saw. "Who is this… person?" she asked Hasso, and if the last word of the question held a certain mocking edge, what could he do about it? It was the word he'd used himself.

  "I am Drepteaza, priestess of Lavtrig in Falticeni." She spoke for herself, in her own excellent Lenello. "And…" She stepped forward and took Hasso's hand in hers.

  "Yes. And." He squeezed hers.

  Velona's eyes flashed. "Disgusting," she said.

  "As a matter of fact, no," Hasso told her. This time, Drepteaza squeezed him. But he had to speak to Velona again: "You warn me not to love you. How do you blame me if I love someone else?"

  Velona stared at him. So did Drepteaza. Had he said anything to her about love? He didn't think so. His timing was less than ideal. He'd have to fix that later. Now… Now Velona spoke to him as if he were an idiot — and she doub
tless thought he was. As if spelling out what he should have known already, she said, "I meant a Lenello, not a Grenye."

  "Too bad," Hasso said. "Grenye are people, too." He underscored that by switching to Bucovinan to ask Drepteaza, "What do we do with her?"

  "I don't know," the priestess answered in the same language. No, Velona didn't speak it — Hasso hadn't thought she would stoop to learning. Drepteaza went on, "We could do two things, I suppose. We could kill her or let her go."

  "Not keep her prisoner, the way you do — uh, did — with me?" Hasso asked.

  "If she were only Velona, I would say yes, we could do that," Drepteaza said. "With the goddess in her…" She shook her head. "I don't know how much power she can pull through that connection. I don't want to find out. It could be worse than keeping all your gunpowder prisoner in one place."

  Hasso grunted and nodded. He'd always thought Velona was so much female dynamite. Here was his own thought come back to him transmuted. "How much bad luck goes with killing her?" he wondered aloud.

  "I don't know the answer to that, either," Drepteaza said. "Even with an amulet that works, I'm not sure I want to find out. Do you?"

  "She would kill me in a heartbeat." Hasso's eyes kept sliding to Velona. Beat-up as she was, she still looked damn good to him. Drepteaza had to know it, too. He would likely end up paying for that later. He sighed. "I haven't got the heart to do it, regardless of bad luck."

  "I told you you were a fool. But then, if you love me, you already know that." Drepteaza turned to Rautat, who was hovering in the background. "Go fetch Lord Zgomot. This should be his choice."

  "Yes, priestess." The underofficer seemed relieved to have an excuse to beat it.

  "What are you barking and mooing about?" Velona asked Hasso: so much for her opinion of Bucovinan.

  "Whether to kill you or not," he answered.

  Her nostrils flared. It wasn't fear. It was more the reaction a cat would have if it heard the mice were planning to bell it. "The curse of the goddess would fall on the guilty," she warned.

  "We know," Drepteaza said.

  "That didn't worry the three guys chasing you when I first came to this world." Hasso used two Lenello past tenses in one sentence. He impressed himself, if not Velona.

  She looked at him as if a donkey had just lifted its tail and left him lying in the roadway. "When you did, I thought you would be a blessing for my folk, not a curse."

  "He is a blessing for this world," Drepteaza said quietly.

  "Not if he helps Grenye." Velona had the courage — and the blindness — of her convictions.

  "We are not your beasts of burden." Drepteaza's voice had an edge to it. Hasso could have told her she was wasting her breath. Odds were she already knew. A thousand-kilo bomb wouldn't change Velona's mind.

  "Well, well," Lord Zgomot said — courteously, in Lenello. "I did not expect this."

  Velona eyed him with a certain caution if not respect — he'd caused the Lenelli a lot of trouble over the years. "Neither did I," she said bitterly.

  "What do we do with her, Lord?" Hasso asked, also in Lenello. Drepteaza filled in the alternatives — in Bucovinan. If Velona didn't like it, too bad — that was her attitude. Hasso didn't see how he could blame her.

  Zgomot seldom looked happy. Maybe he had right after his army's smashing victory. Contemplating what to do with Velona gave him a good excuse for his chronic dyspepsia. "She hurts us if we keep her, if we kill her, or if we let her go," he said, which summed things up pretty well. "Best to let her go… I think. At least she won't hurt us in the realm if we do that — not right away, anyhow."

  "King Bottero will thank you," Velona said in unwontedly quiet tones.

  "No, he won't," Zgomot replied. "He's dead."

  "Dead? Bottero?" The full magnitude of the disaster Velona's kingdom had suffered seemed to sink in for the first time. Goddess. Her lips shaped the word without a sound. But she got no help from the goddess then. Was she too badly hurt to sustain such aid? Did all the amulets around her block it? Hasso had no idea.

  "I will give you one of the horses we captured," the Lord of Bucovin told her. "You may ride away on it. If you are wise, you will not set foot in my lands again."

  "I doubt I am wise, if that is wisdom," she said. "But I thank you for the gift all the same." By the way she spoke, it was no less than her due.

  Hasso wondered if she could even stand, let along ride, but she was one tough cookie. When the horse came, the groom who brought it promptly took a powder. "Do you want help getting up into the saddle?" Hasso asked.

  "Not from you," she said coldly. "You beat me. You beat my kingdom. You beat my folk. You have not stolen my pride." She swayed, but she mounted without help from Hasso or from anyone else. And he was convinced nothing but that enormous — maybe monstrous — pride kept her on the horse as she rode west at a slow walk.

  "Whew!" Hasso's shoulders slumped, as they might have had the Bucovinans lost.

  "You… loved her? You loved… that?" Drepteaza asked.

  "Yeah, well, you already knew I was stupid."

  "There are degrees to everything."

  "You must be right. You usually are." Hasso bent down and kissed her, right there on the battlefield. You probably weren't supposed to do things like that. But when he came up for air, he saw Lord Zgomot smiling at them. Zgomot pulled his face straight in a hurry, but not quite fast enough.

  Drepteaza saw the Lord of Bucovin smiling, too. She sent him a severe look, then turned up the voltage when she aimed it at Hasso. "You are impossible," she said.

  "Jawohl!" He stiffened to attention and clicked his heels, which nobody from this world did. His arm shot out in a salute nobody from this world used. "At your service, fair lady!"

  "Impossible," Drepteaza repeated, but without the iron that had been in her voice before. She turned to Zgomot. "What are we going to do with him, Lord?"

  "Well, as for me, I aim to keep him as long as I possibly can," Zgomot answered. "What you do with him is up to you, of course, but he does not seem to want to go away in spite of, ah, everything."

  In spite of Velona, he meant. Was he right? As things worked out, yes. Would he be right if Velona wanted me back? Hasso wondered. Damned if I know. Never a dull moment with her — no, not even close — but one day, sure as hell, she'd detonate and blow you to bits. Drepteaza was quieter but safer, definitely better for the long haul.

  And he had something he needed to say straight to her, not just let her hear in passing: "I do love you, you know."

  She nodded. "Yes, I do. Nice of you to tell me, though." As his ears heated, she went on, "And if you loved her, too, I have to wonder about your taste."

  "Maybe not." Lord Zgomot threw the drowning Hasso a line. "Men don't judge women the same way women judge men."

  "A pretty face, a nice shape, a tight snatch… I know," Drepteaza said, and Hasso's ears got hotter yet. She went on, "Plenty for a good-time girl, but for love7. You ought to look for more there."

  This time, Hasso spoke for himself: "Well, I did. I found you, yes?"

  "Who knows what you were looking for when you found me?" she said.

  "A pretty face, a nice shape… The other I don't know about, but I wouldn't be surprised," Zgomot said. Yes, Bucovinans could be very blunt. Drepteaza squeaked. Hasso might have if she didn't beat him to the punch.

  Since she did, he added, "And more."

  "Impossible," Drepteaza repeated. He nodded, not without pride of his own. She made a face at him and said, "If I can forgive you for being big and blond, I must love you."

  "Good," Hasso said, and kissed her again. He found Zgomot smiling once more when he broke the clinch. If Bless you, my children wasn't written all over the Lord of Bucovin's canny face…

  If it wasn't, then maybe Hasso was seeing sheer relief. All across the field, Zgomot's men were slitting the throats of Lenelli or leading them off into captivity. Some would make useful laborers. Others would know things the Bucovinans di
dn't, and that Hasso didn't, either. Bucovin was still behind its neighbors most ways. Now Zgomot's realm had more of a chance to catch up, and now the Bucovinans knew a few things the Lenelli didn't, too.

  I did that. For better or worse, I did, Hasso thought. Now he'd seen from both sides what happened when technically superior enemies who thought themselves the lords of creation came at you. It was great fun when the panzers rolled forward or the assault column of knights struck home. Being on the receiving end was a different story — yeah, just a little.

  No wonder the Russians fought back so hard. No wonder they hated the German invaders so much. Hasso hadn't got it then. Even the Red Army's counterattacks hadn't made him understand — he'd only understood that there were way too many Ivans. If the other guy aimed to take your land and wipe you out or enslave you forever… Nothing like putting the shoe on the other foot.

  It would have happened here. It would have, but it hadn't, and he had a lot to do with that. Maybe Velona was right after all when she said the goddess brought him here for a reason. It just wasn't the reason she thought. He kissed Drepteaza one more time. Good-bye, Velona.

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