Rally Cry

by William R. Forstchen

  "I have a life in me here," she said softly, placing her hand over her stomach, and turning, she looked back at the assembly. "I'll fight and die rather than let a noble or priest take that from me to be fed into the pit, and if you are men you'll fight with me!"

  There was a moment of stunned silence, which changed in an instant to wild shouts of rage that had been pent up all their lives. Daggers came from belts, slamming into the table.

  "We fight!"

  Dancing and screaming, the men erupted into wild pandemonium.

  Kal spun his daughter around, while the group, howling and shouting, let loose a lifetime of frustration and rage.

  "How?" he asked, trying to be heard.

  "In the usual way," she said, suddenly nervous. "I wanted to tell you, but. . ."

  "Hawthorne?" Kal asked disbelievingly.

  Smiling weakly, she nodded in reply.

  He was tempted to explode with rage, but the look in her eyes and the pride he felt for what she had just helped to create overwhelmed him.

  He pulled her close.

  "We're going to have find that boy and have a very long talk."

  Then, releasing the girl, he climbed atop the table and shouted for attention.

  He looked around at the men. When the excitement wore off, he realized, the full terror of what they had just started would sink in. In his heart he feared that before this was done, together or separately, they would all be hung on the wall or led into the pits, but for the moment he did not care.

  "We are not pleased with either of you," the Namer growled.

  In spite of each other's presence, Rasnar and Ivor could not conceal their terror.

  "The Yankees are your responsibility," the Namer continued, pointing straight at Ivor, "and yours," his gaze shifting to Rasnar.

  "But we did not bid them to come here," Ivor protested.

  "Yet you suffered them to live among you. Their infection of defiance might spread, and it would be a pity to flatten your cities if they should resist us."

  His left hand ran over the wound to his arm. Such a thing had never before been done. He had actually been frightened by them, though he dared not show it or admit it to anyone.

  The chant singers had told about cattle who had appeared fifteen or more circlings back. Their face hair was pointed, beneath shining caps of armor. A hundred Tugars had died from their smoke makers before they had been stamped out.

  Best to let the cattle settle it now, and if any were left of the Yankees, Qubata would finish them. It was not that he feared their numbers—he had counted not half a thousand of them. It was their defiance which could never be tolerated. Breaking them would keep the Rus cattle in line as well. But they must not be allowed to go elsewhere, to hide and breed.

  "I leave now with your own problem to settle by my command. But remember this as well. I want their skulls laid out for me, and all of their devices as well when we return. Let them not escape. I want as well for you to save for me the two leaders who showed defiance. I have a promise to keep with them."

  He started from the door, and then paused and looked back. "You boyars and churchmen have lived well under our rule, but such things could be changed. It has happened in other lands to those who keep not their lowest ones respectful of our rule."

  Lowering his head to clear the door, the Namer strode out into the nave of the cathedral. He looked at the altar, and laughed at the image of the weak gods of cattle who in the afterworlds must offer their own flesh to Bulgatana, father god of the Chosen Race.

  Peering anxiously from the window, Ivor and Rasnar watched as the Namer mounted his high platform. The nargas and drums sounded and the procession passed up across the empty square. A knot of peasants stood off to one side, shrieking in sorrow as fifty of their loved ones, hooked to chains, staggered off behind the column, food for the march back westward.

  "Now you must be with me," Rasnar said coldly, looking back at Ivor.

  The boyar sat down heavily, and adjusting his glasses he looked at his hated foe.

  "If all the Rus were united," he said quietly, "peasant, noble, church, we could fight them."

  "Are you mad?" Rasnar hissed. "They would smash us into the ground. Do you think I like them, knowing they hold power over us? Remember your station, Ivor. We rule through them."

  "We could rule without them," the boyar said coldly.

  "You are mad."

  "The Yankees could show us how."

  "So that was your hope as well, wasn't it? That is why you did nothing for now, and let them build their infernal devices upon your land. You became tempted to defy even the Tugars. But now they come too soon for your mad dream to be possible."

  Ivor was silent.

  "You know what the Yankees will do. They will fight and they will die. For each death of a Tugar, a thousand must die. If the Yankees can even kill one for one, half the people of all Rus will die in retribution, and I daresay there will be no exemption for nobles this time."

  "We could fight alongside them," Ivor said again, coldly.

  "If you dare," Rasnar hissed, "then through me all the cities of Rus will march against you, for there is no love between you and your brother boyars. They think you fat, overproud, and desirous of being named Ivor the Great rather than Ivor Weak Eyes as you really are."

  With a snarl, the boyar stood up and started for the door.

  "What will it be? Defeat the Yankees and the church will not object to your becoming the Great. Defy me and it will be Mikhail instead."

  Ivor turned and looked back at Rasnar. Somehow an idea had started to form over these months, but now he knew it was dead. Time had played against him. There was no alternative left, for now that the reality was before him, the mad dreams had died. He knew after all that the horde was invincible and he must live.

  "I will send messengers tonight," Ivor whispered. "The nobles will gather from the cities. When the snow falls heavy again, we will attack them in the middle of the night."

  Rasnar smiled.

  "But if Keane is taken alive, he is mine. Perhaps I can still save him, and the same stands for any other Yankee."

  "Of course," Rasnar replied.

  "As for the Yankee weapons, they are mine as well."

  Rasnar did not argue that point. There would be time enough later to change that agreement.

  The boyar stalked from the room, and laughing softly, the prelate returned to his desk.

  "All right, gentlemen," Andrew said, settling behind his desk. "This is an open meeting. I want all opinions."

  The room was silent as the various company commanders, staff, and contingents from O'Donald's and Cromwell's units looked about, each hoping the other would say something first.

  Finally it was O'Donald who stood up.

  "If ever something needed killing," O'Donald said, "it's those beasties. I volunteered to fight rebs, and I did it gladly, wanting a good argument to sink my teeth into. But I didn't hate them. This is different. I'll kill Tugars and laugh while a-doin' it."

  Several of the company commanders nodded grimly.

  "I'm an abolitionist man," Houston said sharply. "I joined to fight slavery. This makes the Johnnies back home look like rock-solid Republicans. Let's smash this system to the ground, colonel, free the peasants, arm 'em, and fight!"

  "I think it's madness," Tobias retorted from the other end of the table.

  Normally any comment from the man would draw at best indifference from the infantry and artillerymen, but Andrew noticed that this time there was a difference in the room.

  "Go on, Captain Cromwell," Andrew said evenly. "State your views."

  "You heard that Kal fellow when we questioned him earlier. These Tugars number in the hundreds of thousands. We can fight and we'll all die. I'm not one for dying in a hopeless cause.

  "Now, I've sailed the waters south of here. There's good land to be found, far away from this madhouse. I say we pull out while the pulling's good and hide out till the Tugars have pas
sed."

  "And if they hunt us down?" Andrew asked. "For I've got a feeling they can't let people like us live—it would set a precedent that could threaten their entire system."

  "Then if they find us, we'll simply load up the Ogunquit again, pull out to sea, and move on. I don't think they've got anything to match the steam engines below her deck."

  Tobias settled back into his chair and looked around. More than one man was nodding in agreement.

  "So we learn to live like hunted dogs, is that it?" O'Donald snapped back. "Always looking over our shoulders, ready to run from our shadows."

  "Not always," Tobias retorted. "You heard Kal—they stay for a winter in one area, then move on by spring heading east. Twenty years later they come back out of the west. We need hide only for this one year. When they come back again, we and our sons will be ready for them."

  "And leave the people of Suzdal to the sack, is that it?" Mina retorted.

  "What good could we do anyhow?" Tobias replied. "They are like cattle, just like the niggers back home who worked like cattle in the fields. If the niggers wanted their freedom so all-fired bad, why didn't they rebel when John Brown started it all? And it's the same with these lazy peasants."

  "Last I heard," Andrew said slowly, "those men you call niggers had a hundred and eighty thousand brothers wearing Union blue. After the battle of the Crater I saw their bodies carpeting the field from one end to the other."

  All in the room could see Andrew bristling at Tobias.

  "I call those men Americans, damn you," he said.

  Tobias backed off.

  "Are there any other comments?" Andrew continued, looking around the table, his voice still sharp from the encounter.

  "There's the simple logistics of it all," Emil said, leaning forward. "No matter what our pride tells us, six hundred cannot stand before hundreds of thousands. We saw what their bowman did to poor Johnson. Hans went and paced it off later—a hundred and seventy yards that shot carried.

  "Even with our rifles they'll close in enough to shoot and simply wear us down."

  Andrew found himself nodding in agreement. His initial rage had cooled as the harsh realities of what they faced finally settled in. With only six hundred they'd be surrounded and smothered under a rain of feathered death.

  "If we stay, it'll be almost certain death," Andrew said quietly, and the room was silent.

  "I have never turned from a fight in my life. You and I have stood together on a score of fields, and never has the 35th run, and the record of the 44th Artillery is as honorable.

  "If our deaths here would mean something, then I would order us to stay and fight. But what I wish in this will not be the deciding factor. I cannot order the brave men of this regiment to die, most likely for no purpose at all."

  Tobias started to smile, but Andrew's look cut him off.

  "If we stay, we'll have to fight Ivor and the nobles first, before we can even take a shot at the Tugars."

  "If only the nobles would swing to our side," Houston argued.

  "Even if they did, they'd be more hindrance than help. They're nothing but medieval horsemen armed with swords and lances. The horse archers of the horde would sweep them out of their saddles in the first charge."

  "The peasants?" O'Donald asked.

  "It'd take years to get them ready."

  "So you're saying that we pull out," O'Donald said disbelievingly.

  "I said I would not order this regiment to stay. Near all of them are volunteers. They volunteered to fight the Confederacy; there was nothing in that agreement about fighting here. This is a different fight, and I feel they have the right to decide this issue for themselves. It is the only fair answer to this question."

  Surprised, the officers looked around the table at one another.

  "It's not to be taken lightly, so I'll give them a week. At the end of the week there'll be a vote by secret ballot. The majority will decide in this one, gentlemen, and I will live with that majority. That is all, gentlemen."

  The room emptied, until only Hans was left.

  "Well, old friend," Andrew said wearily, "I'd consider it an honor if you'd join me in a drink."

  He filled two tumblers with the last drop of brandy in his possession.

  "Did I do the right thing?" he asked, looking at the sergeant. Not since Gettysburg had he asked that question of his old mentor.

  Hans's features creased into the slightest of smiles.

  "Son, it was the only thing you could do."

  "Dammit, man, I want to stay and fight, maybe even try to persuade Ivor to join me."

  "I doubt if he would."

  "If he were alone without that bastard Rasnar I think he'd try."

  "But he's not.'

  "I've ruined it all," Andrew said dejectedly.

  "Look at me, son."

  Andrew tried to meet Hans' gaze but couldn't.

  "I remember when you were nothing but a scared pup. Andrew, boy, you've become the finest soldier I've ever seen. You know how to kill when you have to, and a damn fine killer you are, a regular demon angel of a killer.

  "But there's more to being a soldier than that. You love the men of this regiment as if they were your own flesh. It burns a man's soul to be like that—I've seen more than one officer go mad from it—but you've got the strength. You know how to lead these boys, to show them you respect them as men, and, God help you, when the time comes to spend their lives to buy what is needed.

  "I thought your decision to fight a war to try and save Hawthorne the most noble act I've ever seen, and the men loved you for it and would have died by the hundreds to see it done. Far too many armies forget that rule, to protect their own no matter what. When soldiers know their comrades will not abandon them, they'll fight the harder.

  "But for this fight you can't ask that of them. You said it well before—their knights are useless, their peasants would be slaughtered. I think, son, this fight is beyond us."

  "I feel like a coward."

  Hans grabbed hold of Andrew's arm from across the table.

  "You're the bravest officer it's ever been my privilege to serve. I think this one's a lost fight, Andrew. Maybe in twenty years, as Tobias said, we and our sons will be ready. But you can't throw away your life, or lead the regiment to its doom. Always remember, Andrew, the regiment must survive."

  "Do you think the boys will vote to go?" he asked quietly.

  "They might surprise you, son."

  "You want to stay, don't you?" Andrew asked.

  Hans smiled.

  "I felt like I wanted to when I saw that evil bastard come riding in, but now ..." His voice trailed off.

  "I'm afraid," Andrew whispered. "I saw that thing and I was afraid, and I'm afraid the men will think me a coward for not ordering us to stay and fight."

  "It takes courage sometimes not to fight," Hans retorted. "Dammit, son, I'm so frightened out on the field sometimes I can't stop from shaking, it's just everyone else is frightened too and don't notice it."

  "Funny," Andrew said, a strange detachment to his voice, "since Antietam, I haven't been afraid—in fact, I almost love it. That is, till now, and," his voice dropping, "when I sleep."

  "Let's see what the boys decide," Hans said softly.

  The two fell into silence. Gradually Andrew's head lowered onto the table. Finally Hans stepped around to Andrew's chair, and picking him up, he gently laid the young officer on his cot, removing his spectacles and putting them on the sideboard.

  "You've done well," Hans said softly, "but I don't want you dying for a fight you can't win."

  Scarlet with embarrassment, Hawthorne stood before Kal, unable to raise his eyes from the floor, while Andrew stood circumspectly to one side.

  "I should be angry with you," Kal said in a cold, even voice.

  "Yes sir."

  "My only daughter," Ludmilla sobbed. "To think a mother should raise her little girl to be like this."

  Tanya moved closer to Hawthorne, and protect
ively his arm went over her shoulder.

  Kal looked at the couple. They both looked so young, and his memory went back to a similar meeting long ago. His glance slipped over to Ludmilla, and the common memory was shared in their eyes, and they smiled shyly at each other.

  Perhaps it was for the best after all, Kal thought sadly. Tanya had not yet been born when the horde last came, but her older brother, Gregory, had, and it had been Rasnar himself who had chosen him for the moon feast table.

  Maybe there were only days left, and no matter what, a year at most, let his little girl have her happiness, to know a brief moment of joy before the end.

  His eyes started to cloud with tears. Walking around the rough-hewn table, he extended his arms, embracing both of them.

  Hawthorne raised his eyes to look at the peasant.

  "You are my son," Kal said hoarsely. "I was proud of you, and the first time I met you I thought in my heart that you would be a fitting son. Now love each other, for it is the gift Kesus gives most abundantly to youth."

  Kal stepped back from the two.

  "Now sit and eat, my son," Ludmilla said, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Tanya, come help."

  Leaning over, Hawthorne kissed Tanya lightly on the forehead. Smiling, she dashed over to Kal, hugged the burly peasant fiercely, and then went into the next room.

  Hawthorne looked back at Andrew, who smiled at the young corporal. It still amazed him that the young Quaker, of all the men in his regiment, had been the first to get a girl into trouble. But somehow this was different. The love the two showed for each other was obvious to any who saw them together. He breathed an inner sigh of relief. It could have gone far worse.

  "There should be a marriage," Hawthorne said softly, coming to sit next to Kal.

  "In the church?" Kal asked.

  "If that is your wish and custom."

  Kal spat on the floor and shook his head.

  "We have no preacher with us," Hawthorne said, and he turned and looked at Andrew, who still stood in the back of the room. "Sir, I was kind of hoping you would say the words."

  Flustered, Andrew looked at Kal.

  "Sir, we haven't a preacher, and I was thinking you're sort of like the captain of a ship here."