by Scott McKay
“That said, I did manage to get confirmation of most elements of her story by bits and pieces of what the others would tell me. We’re in a major war, sir.”
“Yes we are, young ensign,” Patrick replied. “Yes, we are.”
“What about our old chum Ago’an?” Patrick inquired.
“He did seem impressed that I knew who he was,” Broadham said. “And I passed along the fact he was up on a murder charge and subject to hanging.”
“And?” asked the commander.
“He spat on me,” Broadham said.
“That shit-eating sonofabitch,” Patrick said, with mild indignance.
“All right, Broadham. I want your best call here. You’ve interrogated the others. Do you believe any of them cough us up information of strategic or tactical value in the event they see their commander swinging?”
“I want to say yes, sir,” Broadham answered.
“But you’re not saying yes, are you?”
“No, sir. I am not. I wish I did believe it.”
“I appreciate the candor, Ensign,” Patrick said.
Shit, he thought.
Of course, bringing Ago’an to Dunnansport and letting the Marines hang him in front of the public wouldn’t be a terrible idea. If nothing else it would do a little bit of good for morale after the trauma those people were going through. He guessed he could wait a couple of days for this savage to get what was coming to him.
A few moments later, another call came from the observation tower. “Campfires, commander! Could be the enemy. They’re west of the Terhune camp.”
Patrick used his field glasses and surveyed the coastline to the northwest and spotted what the tower had called. It was clearly a camp. It looked as though there was a large fire in the middle with other fires scattered around it.
“There you bastards are,” he snarled. “All ahead full, heading three-one-five.”
The Adelaide increased its speed to the full twenty-two knots, rounding a bend in the coastline, making its way to the site of the fires on the beach a few miles ahead.
…
THIRTY
The Mouth of the Cave – Evening (Second Day)
After a short time kneeling on the sand with her fellow captives, Sarah found herself fetched by the Udar women again. And again she was brought to Rapan’na’s tent.
“I am pleased you completed your journey,” said Charlotte, who sat in a side-saddle position on the cushion laid out in the middle of the tent. Sarah was forced onto her knees before the javeen. Her gag was removed.
“I’m still breathing,” she smiled, not entirely sure if it was proper to do so. “What happens now?”
Charlotte motioned to the guards, who untied Sarah’s arms from their painful folded position behind her back. “First, let us give you some nourishment.” She waved in two other women, who bore a platter laden with berries, a bowl of the porridge Sarah had eaten the previous night and, this time, a chicken which had been freshly roasted.
Sarah ate, as did Charlotte. Neither spoke for a few minutes. Sarah had questions, but was apprehensive about the answers, and she figured she had all the time in the world at this point. Charlotte was similarly in no hurry.
And Charlotte handed her a goblet half-filled with marwai. Sarah took it, and under Charlotte’s watchful eye, sipped from it. Her head began to spin a little again.
Finally, the older woman spoke.
“Tonight is an important point in your life, Sarah. Tonight you will take a step toward your new existence as a javeen. We will celebrate that step in due time.”
Sarah protested, delicately. She didn’t want to upset Charlotte again “I still haven’t made any such decision,” she stammered. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d rather be killed.”
Charlotte eyed her carefully, and then smiled. “You lie,” she chuckled. “You are here. One dozen are not. If you truly wished to die rather than embrace your future you would have perished in the fields to the east today.”
Sarah had no response. She felt the inevitability of whatever was coming fall upon her.
“And so tonight you will take the intermediate step, as will your fellow novitiates.”
“Meaning?” Sarah asked.
“First you will be prepared,” said Charlotte. She turned to the guards. “Le’aylora. Mizonreen. Sa’avori,” she said.
The women collected Sarah gently and helped her to her feet. Her shift, which by now was little more than a rag, was taken off her, leaving her naked in the warm air. One guard pointed to the sandals on her feet. “Oonet,” she said.
“Take off your shoes,” explained Charlotte.
Sarah shot her a worried look, then untied the sandals at her ankles.
She was then led out of the tent by a chain leash attached to her collar. From there it was down to the beach, where the guards walked her into Watkins Gulf with another woman following just behind. She carried a large sponge, which she used to roughly scrub Sarah down in the saltwater.
Not the best bath I’ve ever had, she thought to herself as she attempted to cover herself with her hands.
The bath mercifully did not last long, and Sarah was marched close to the large bonfire in the middle of the camp. A tall woman awaited her with a pair of shears.
“Ssssou’ru!” chanted the women of the camp.
The guards forced Sarah down to her knees as the tall woman approached her. They held her still by the shoulders and chin as the shears went to work, shortly reducing her below-the-shoulder-length locks to nothing. Sarah’s head was shorn close, to match that of the Udar women.
“You are almost prepared,” said Charlotte, as she approached Sarah from behind.
Another of the women arrived, a bowl containing some sort of gray paste in her arms.
Sarah was picked up by the guards and made to stand as two of the women proceeded to smear the sticky substance, which smelled like blackberries, tar, and sadness, all over her body: on her shoulders, back, breasts, stomach, arms, legs and nether regions. It was a highly unpleasant experience, and Sarah couldn’t hold back tears at her debasement.
Especially as she noticed her audience. Though her view was obscured by the large bonfire in front of her, Sarah could see that many of her fellow captives had been made to watch her ordeal, and the looks on the faces she could see were of dull panic and resigned horror.
“They will be prepared as well,” Charlotte said, as she gave Sarah another sip of marwai. “It is the way of the Anur.”
Guards then came for the Ardenian captives in their groups of ten, and over the next hour the whole of the captives had been stripped, washed, shorn and covered in the gray paste.
“Now what?” Sarah, slightly recovered from her emotional spell, asked Charlotte. She was happy that her friend was still talking to her, and she had resolved again not to be enraged and bitchy.
“We wait for Rapan’na and the rest of the Anur, and you all begin your novitiation.”
Sarah guessed that would be all right, as her head continued to spin pleasantly. And though she was naked as the evening got cooler, she felt comfortably warm.
…
THIRTY ONE
The Ridge – Night (Second Day)
Will and Robert had ridden ahead of the Terhune force as scouts once again, and once again they found themselves encountering the enemy ahead of the main battle to come.
This time, fortunately, they weren’t being shot at, which Robert regarded as progress as he and Will regarded the campfires from a ridgeline 400 yards to the north of the Udar campsite. Will had dispatched Paul Tyler, a young militiaman from Dunnansport, whose day job was as a clerk in Uncle David’s cotton storehouse, to ride at speed back to the command line to report the location of the Udar camp.
Their position was well hidden, with the bulk of their ten-man scouting party twenty yards behind. If the enemy spotted them, Will surmised, they would have the ability to get away quickly.
“By the Saints, they’ve taken a
lot of captives,” whispered Robert. “Look at all of them, Will!”
“I see it,” Will said softly. “Know what else I see?”
“No men,” Rob answered.
“That’s right. You don’t think we wiped out their riders, do you?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Rob said. “Nothing’s worked out that well on this trip.”
“True that,” Will groused.
The two watched as some sort of ritual was taking place. At several spots throughout the camp, near the multiple fires laid on the sandy beach between Watkins Gulf and the cliffside where Will and Rob were observing, the Udar women were holding up captives and cutting their hair, then smearing them with a gray substance. The rest of the captives, heavily guarded by women with spears and whips handy, were made to watch. Then the guards took more captives in groups to the water, returning them to the firesides to repeat the ritual.
Will remarked that nobody was resisting. “Seems strange,” he observed. “Wonder what they do to get that kind of compliance.”
“Sarah is down there,” Rob seethed. “I can feel it. Uncle David was right.”
“I think he was, too,” Will said. “But we are not going to lose our cool and do something stupid. We’re going down there with the whole force.”
“I know,” Rob said. “But they’re going to pay for doing this shit, whatever it is.”
“Psssst!” came a voice from the main scout party to the rear.
Will and Rob scampered back from the ridgeside, rejoining the rest of the scouts.
“We’ve gotta go,” said Louis Turnbull, a farmboy from just west of Dunnansport, who’d been with Will and Rob from the beginning. “Riders to the southwest approaching the camp. We can’t be seen apart from the main force.”
“Agreed,” said Will as he mounted his horse. “Come on, Rob. Let’s go call in the cavalry.”
Rob said nothing as he quickly stepped into a stirrup and threw his right leg over the saddle. He slapped his horse’s hind-quarter and the mare took off at a trot for the command line. The rest of the scouts followed hard behind him.
…
THIRTY TWO
The Mouth of the Cave – Night (Second Day)
Sarah thought it was quite peculiar, and even more educational, that when the riders approached the camp, the reaction was less than enthusiastic among the waiting women.
She was one of some 370-odd kneeling captives, all naked, their heads shaven and covered in foul-smelling gray paste, waiting for some further stage of whatever ritual the Anur was initiating them into. Sarah silently cursed that the prisoners hadn’t taken action against the women when all the warriors had left the camp.
That was unrealistic, she knew. They’d just been on an all-day march at spear- and whip-point, with very little food and water, and though they’d all been freed from their painful arm bondage, the captives were each exhausted. Resistance in this case was suicide. After watching more than a dozen of their number executed in the flames for crimes as slight as failing to keep up with the march, moreover, they all knew the enemy would show no mercy for noncompliance.
Of course, there was the marwai, too. Sarah wondered when that would be passed around again.
In any event, things appeared to be going as planned for their captors.
But then the riders approached the camp, and what initially were whoops of celebration from the women of the Anur quickly went silent and even turned to quiet murmurs and sobs.
Something was wrong, and Sarah figured out quickly what that was.
There were too few of them.
Sarah only counted about thirty of the riders. They had more than 300 in the camp the night before. Something had happened to the rest.
Charlotte was standing nearby as she knelt near the large bonfire.
“Where are the rest of them?” Sarah asked.
“Keep quiet,” Charlotte said.
She did. Charlotte walked toward the approaching horsemen.
Seconds later, the headman, Rapan’na, descended from his horse in front of her. Charlotte kneeled and bowed her head, and Rapan’na put his hands on her temples.
Sarah heard her ask him a question, and he grunted in response as he led her to his tent. Similar exchanges were had throughout the camp as riders dismounted and the women led their horses to the makeshift rope stable on the camp’s west side. It was clear they’d lost a battle.
Ardenia was coming, Sarah now knew. There was hope after all.
Just then Sarah heard an unmistakable sound of civilization. There was a large steam engine chugging away in close proximity, and she could see a bright light flashing rapidly from just off the coast.
…
THIRTY THREE
The Ridge – Midnight (Second Day)
“We’re camping here tonight,” Terhune insisted. “But we’re riding hard before dawn and we’ll take the enemy unprepared.”
“Colonel,” Will interjected. “Right now we may have a 10-to-1 advantage on them, and we can be there in less than half an hour. Do we not want to do this immediately?”
“Considerations, my boy,” said Terhune. “First, we know the enemy has reinforcements on the way in numbers that would wipe us out. We don’t know when they’ll arrive, but we do know if we go down there and take those Udars, now we’ve got to rescue those survivors and get them back across the Tweade.
“Our best hope to do that successfully is to get them on boats and then get the hell out of here. We’ve been signaling with Adelaide, and they’ll have three other ships here by dawn. That’s our best option.”
Will shrugged, acquiescing. “There’s something about the captives,” he reported. “We saw zero signs of resistance.”
He and Rob recounted the ritual to which the Udar were subjecting their prisoners.
“They’re drugged,” Terhune explained. “Udar uses a hallucinogen laced into some sort of hooch they make from belladonna berries. It’s amazingly powerful stuff and it’ll turn anybody into a wet noodle.”
Terhune noted the rage on Rob’s face.
“That’s why trying to get them out of here on foot isn’t realistic, Stuart,” he said. “We need the Yarmouth or we’ll be sitting ducks in the event of a counterattack.”
Rob said nothing, but Terhune could see he understood.
“And something else. Those reinforcements might be here by dawn. Or they might be getting there now. I don’t want to be feeling my way through the dark and happen upon 10,000 of those bastards with only tired troops who can’t shoot straight.”
The colonel had made up his mind, and after a day of what felt like nonstop battle, few in the camp were prepared to argue with his logic. The Ardenians quickly set up the camp, eschewing their fires save the one inside the signal lantern the Marines were using to coordinate with Adelaide.
The plan was laid. The Ardenians were camping about three miles from the Udar tent village – less than fifteen minutes’ ride away at a gallop. They would depart for battle in time to arrive just at dawn, and on their arrival Adelaide and its sister ships would bombard the outskirts of the village, remaining careful to keep the shells away from the holding area in the middle of the Udar camp. With such a shock attack and with so few–it was hoped–Udar warriors available for the defense of the camp, the enemy might well decide to abandon the captives and flee, or perhaps there would be a way to negotiate the release of the captives without any further violence.
Adelaide was putting ashore its twenty-two remaining Marines in four lifeboats as dawn approached, along with a translator from the ship to assist in any parlay which might be had. In addition, the sidewheel steamer Yarmouth, which had arrived shortly after sundown, would advance to the beach by dawn; its retractable paddlewheel and relatively light draft, plus its foldable ramp, would allow it to serve as a landing craft. The frigates Castamere and Louise, which were advancing to the battle space at top speed and would arrive overnight, would cover the beach to the west of the camp in an effo
rt to seal it off from the Udar reinforcements coming from Strongstead.
But if the enemy was bringing raptors, there wasn’t a lot the Terhune contingent could do. They were as good as dead if the giant birds came on the scene.
Lookouts were posted, horses were watered and the men bundled inside their blankets for a short four-hour respite. Few could sleep, their mission nearly at hand.
Will and Rob, in particular.
“What are you going to do after this, Will? Back to Aldingham to finish your third year?” Rob asked.
“I can’t see that now,” Will said. “We’re at war. From here I imagine it’s back to Barley Point, and I’ll take whatever commission Col. Terhune offers. I’m going to guess we’re going to have the scrap of our lives along the Tweade if those bastards have the strength they’re saying. The whole country’s going to have to show up for this fight.
“What’s your plan, Rob?”
“I don’t have one,” came the response. “Get my brother and my sisters together, I imagine, and bring them all to Uncle David’s place in Dunnansport. Be with Aunt Rebecca and the kids for a while, and do what I can to protect them. If that means getting them out to safer ground I’ll do that. You know I’m no good at this Army shit.”
“You got the first mission kill in this whole war,” Will responded. “That should count for something.”
“Yeah, it counts for me losing my mind,” said Rob. “I wanted to torture that savage to death. I’ll have to live with that forever.”
“Look, you,” said Will, his voice gaining some real inflection for the first time since Dunnansport. “Don’t do that to yourself. Now isn’t the time for humanity. You saw what those shit-eaters did on their way to your doorstep. You know what their morals are. You can’t beat yourself up for getting your hands dirty on this little adventure. Drop that baggage right now; it will weigh you down and break your back.”
“The only way to do that is to get out of this fight,” Rob said. “Cutting that Udar sonofabitch up…it wasn’t traumatic, man. I enjoyed it. How am I going to live with that?”