But still the shouting continued, until at last Muzta came to his feet and the gathering fell silent.
"As sword holder of the horde for a circling and a half, he shall be heard," Muzta said evenly.
"To hear his outrage!"
Tula shouted. "To hear what you yourself might believe!"
Muzta turned to face
Tula, hand on sword.
"As Qar Qarth I say he is to be heard," Muzta
said,
a dark menace in his voice.
Tula
with open contempt turned away and stalked to the back of the tent.
Qubata, as if rousing from deep contemplation, looked back up.
"I have served as master of swords to the Tugar horde for one and a half circlings," he began quietly. "I commanded at Onci and at Ag, and at Isgar. Before that I served as commander of the Olkta, and before that down through the ranks to my birth from a family of the common folk. Always I have placed the survival of the horde and the honor of my Qar Qarth above myself. And thus is the reason that I say we must come to terms with the Yankee and Rus people."
An angry murmur started again and then died away as Qubata remained standing in the circle of speech, which when once granted to a Tugar could be held unless directly withdrawn by the Qar Qarth.
"And with that experience I believe I speak what is best for the horde.
"I have grown and lived and turned to my age with the customs of our people. There was a time when our sacred ancestors, if legends are to be believed, traveled even as far as the stars of the Wheel, and built strange and wondrous devices. Devices that we still see vestiges of today, such as the gateways, the tunnels of light which on occasion bring to us beings from other worlds. It is said, in the books of the shamans, that such devices could once be opened and closed at will, and thus our fathers traveled far, having placed these things on many distant worlds.
"It is said as well that when one traveled through the gate, time as great as many circlings passed, yet to him who traveled it was but as a moment. But that understanding is lost, and the gates only open at such and such a time by chance into our own Valdennia. In the land of the Merki it is said that their cattle are different, coming from yet other worlds, though I have not seen that.
"But be that as it may, our fathers were once powerful beings."
"And why do we need to hear this recitation?"
Tula
,
snapped. "It is not our concern. Our fathers were gods, but we are Tugars of the horde, masters of the world that we forever circle in our endless ride."
"It is precisely why you need to hear it now," Qubata said evenly. "Why have we lost these arts, this knowledge? What has become of the Tugar people?"
"As I said, we are masters of the world,"
Tula growled.
"Perhaps eons ago, but are we truly the masters now?" Qubata replied.
The assembly grew uneasy and looked one to the other.
"What have we become?" Qubata said softly. "Are we truly the masters? I am starting to think not."
"Because some foul cattle have fought us?" Zan snapped. "We shall flatten them, and plow their bones into the earth."
"It is deeper, far deeper than that," Qubata replied.
"However it was ordered, it came to pass that a hundred or more circlings ago, our ancestors did not slaughter the strangers that came to our world but saw a use for them. We spared them. We set rulers over them to control them when we were not present. We took from them their horses and bred them to our size and use. We spaced them about the world, giving unto them rich lands where they prospered and grew. We came as well to eat their flesh.
"And we have become slaves to them."
His words were met with stunned silence and looks of confusion.
"Look about us," Qubata said quickly, before outrage could overwhelm him. "What do we produce? Nothing!
Each year we ride to yet the next country of what we call cattle and slaughter them and take from them, and then in the spring ride on to our next year's pasturage.
"Finally we have taken them by the thousands to ride with us as well. We call them pets, but what are they truly? If a thing is to be finely wrought, it is done by a pet. If anything of importance, even our bows and arrows, is to be made, it is done by those whom we winter among, or again by our pets. Thus we have come to know only how to fight, to beget children, and to take from what we call cattle. For what Tugar would dare to lower his dignity to create with his own hands what can be made by cattle or pets instead?
"And now we are slaves to them. With the coming of the pox, look at us now. Already certain things cannot be replaced—even our supply of arrows starts to grow short. We have forgotten everything our fathers knew and live only off the flesh and labor of others."
"As is our right as Tugars!"
Tula roared, and the assembly, coming to their feet, shouted their rage at Qubata, while the few who had listened closely remained silent.
"I knew you would not listen," Qubata said, repeating his words several times before the assembly had finally quieted down.
"So why do you waste our time then?" Zan shouted.
"As a warning," Qubata replied coldly, "and as a final appeal.
"These men are changing. Those who came to us a thousand years ago we were still superior to in weapons and in strength. I have heard Alem speak of the dark-bearded ones who came in a great boat, not unlike the ship of the Yankees, and how they slew more than a hundred before dying. I have seen their thunder weapon. Now come the Yankees, and their thunder weapons are yet more advanced.
"Do you not see? The race of men is progressing while we stand still."
"So we kill them as soon as they appear from the tunnel," Zan said evenly. "It is that simple."
"Perhaps we can, and that would be an answer. But should we not realize what can be seen? We are slowly slipping backward from a race that could once step to the stars and now cannot even make the weapons our enemies use against us.
"I walked through the great buildings the Yankees used to make their war machines in. Not a Tugar of the entire horde could create such a thing with his own hands, yet these people did it in less than a single year," Qubata roared.
"We still see the fragments of the great cities our fathers once built, and we stand before them as children. We do not build, but the humans do."
"Is there a finish to this?"
Tula said coldly. "We need not the ramblings of one who has grown too old to lead and
is
now afraid."
Qubata looked back at Muzta imploringly, and the Qar Qarth did not move, but Qubata could see in eyes that his time to speak was near an end.
"Then listen to these final words. In parley with the Yankee leader a moon ago, he told us they know the secret of the pox, that it is we ourselves who drive it before us."
"We have all heard that. It is a cattle lie," an Umen leader from the back shouted.
"Then why has the pox not struck them, but has laid waste Vazima and all other places we have been too?"
"They have been lucky, that is all," the leader replied.
And as he looked about the assembly, Qubata could see that even the simple logic regarding the disease would not be accepted.
"I say this, and then shall hear your decision, already knowing what it will be.
"Make terms with these people. Offer to them an end to the slaughter pits and this war in return for food to see us through till the next season."
"Food of cattle, we tolerate,"
Tula snapped, "but it is the right of the people to eat the flesh that only Tugars may enjoy. Thus it has always been. Without human flesh we will starve."
"Then we must find another way, for before the humans, did not our fathers eat the food they themselves created? Make terms. In exchange for the peace, they will show us how to stop the pox racing before us.
"I do not say we shall be defenseless. We shall continue our ride about the world, take our tribute, but no longer in human flesh, and then learn from these creatures their secrets. In that is our only hope of final salvation."
Wearily, Qubata looked about the assembly.
"For surely if our fathers once walked the stars, perhaps someday we can learn from these humans how again to make machines, and thus return to what was our true heritage before we fell.
"For what are we now but a race that has slipped into decadence, slaves to the very race we thought we had enslaved?"
Sad-eyed Qubata looked back to his old friend, who, rising, fixed him with his gaze.
"I know this is where we have come to a path
that parts
, my friend," Qubata said evenly, and then looked back at the assembly.
"My words are my own, and not of my Qar Qarth."
"The cattle must be destroyed," Muzta said evenly, looking past Qubata.
"My friend is an old one who has led us well. But if we leave these Yankees to live, surely when we return they will be too strong to destroy. They must die now."
"Even though we shall starve if we stay," Qubata replied, "for if we advance, the pestilence will still be before us. The Yankees hold the key to that. They can show us how to stop it."
"They must all die and be thrown into the pits," Muzta said sharply. "We will attack until they are dead. You have tried to spare the lives of our warriors with this siege," Muzta continued. "For that you have done well, but each day now we grow weaker. Snow is already in the air. There are half a million undiseased cattle in that city, and I will have them!"
Nodding sadly, Qubata reached to his waist and unbuckled his sword belt, letting the weapon drop to the ground, and then looked back at the assembly.
"My words were my own," the old warrior said sadly. "My Qar Qarth needs one to lead who has the flame of youth in his blood. I retire now to contemplate my final days."
The assembly was silent as Qubata strode from the tent, his head held high. Many of the older clan leaders and warriors lowered their heads in respect as he passed, but among most gathered at the meeting there was an air of excitement and expectation.
Muzta watched his old friend leave and silently cursed. Something in his heart told him that perhaps there was truth in his words, but to change course now was to roar at the wind and expect it to turn away. His own position was far too precarious now, for the bloody losses in the first attacks and the tediousness of the siege were making tempers short. He could fall as well if the situation was not soon changed. For weeks he had tried to argue that point with Qubata, who grew more and more distant. When the clan leaders had called for this meeting he knew that there would be this final parting of ways.
Muzta looked about the assembly, which waited expectantly.
Finally his gaze rested on
Tula, and he nodded. The clan leader stepped forward and eagerly swept up the sword, to the roars of approval of the gathering. Muzta looked at his rival without expression. At least now if there was a failure the blame could be shifted. If there was victory, he, Muzta, could still take credit.
"It is time for feasting," Muzta announced, and growling with delight the assembly streamed out of the tent. Two clean ones had been selected for tonight. They were of prime breeding stock, young and full-fleshed, a meal that would divert his quarrelsome nobles for at least a little while.
Tomorrow they could plan, and with good fortune this war would be finished soon, no matter what the loss, which of course would be
Tula's responsibility as well.
"It doesn't look good, does it," Andrew asked quietly, still sweeping the enemy position with his field glasses.
"There's something big brewing out there," Hans replied. "All day long there's been riding back and forth. Petracci reports that they've pulled back a lot of them wheeled tents with their women and children—there's not a single warrior now in the upper camps.
"Down!"
The two ducked as a heavy bolt skidded off the roof of their shelter and went careening behind the lines.
"Couriers seem to be doing a lot of galloping up and down the line," Hans continued, cautiously peering back over the rampart.
"I was hoping they'd just continue this damn siege."
"Even though we'll get starved out before spring?"
"Postponing the inevitable, but still postponing," Andrew said quietly. "God knows if they attack it'll cost them."
"Apparently they've changed their minds."
"When do you think they'll hit?" Andrew asked.
"Too late today.
First light tomorrow."
"If I were they, I'd push it along the entire line, all six miles of it. We'd have to crack somewhere sooner or later."
Hans merely nodded in agreement.