Terrible Swift Sword (34 page)

"Well, we've finally come back, my friend," Jubadi announced.

Hulagar, his features breaking into a smile, motioned for a guard who had been waiting for them to come forward. The warrior bowed low, offering up a leather-wrapped case. Jubadi tore the covering off, and grinned as his hand gripped the hilt of the sword.

"I marked where you threw it in the river," Hulagar said. "This warrior was with the advance guard of the Darg Umen that deployed before Suzdal. He dove in the river under fire, until he retrieved th blade."

Jubadi looked down at the warrior, nodded his thanks, and then climbed down from his mount.

"A gift should be matched in kind," Jubadi said, pointing to his horse.

The warrior backed up, hands extended.

"My Qar Qarth, I cannot."

"Take it, and ride well," Jubadi said with a smile.

Grinning, the warrior leaped into the saddle.

"Now go back and kill cattle."

With a shout of joy the warrior reared the hors< up then galloped off through the woods.

"A generous mood, my Qar Qarth."

"Reward loyalty and bravery," Jubadi said. He motioned for Hulagar to follow, as he walked down closer to the river's edge.

A minie ball flickered through the branches above his head, the shot hissing with a cold cry.

Hulagar stepped in front of Jubadi and motioned for him to stand behind one of the trees.

"And yet I never reward you," Jubadi said, doing as Hulagar had requested.

"I am your shield-bearer. It is not for me to be rewarded with trinkets or horses."

"Well said," Jubadi said softly. "Loyalty of the shield-bearer is his lifeblood, as guided by his
tu."

"Something is troubling you," Hulagar said.

"Tamuka."

Hulagar said nothing, knowing that this had been coming.

"In battle he left the side of my son to seek blood, and I see the hatred that simmers between the two.
This is not as it should be between shield-bearer and Qarth."

"No, my Qarth," Hulagar replied, unable to say anything else.

"Why is this?"

"What do you think, my lord?" Jubadi laughed softly.

"Turn the question back to me, since you believe I might know the answer already." Hulagar nodded.

"Because he despises Vuka, believing that Vuka murdered his brother."

"Your words, not mine," Hulagar said cautiously. "Somewhere along this accursed river," Jubadi said quietly, and despite Hulagar's protest he stepped out from behind the tree to look at the Neiper flowing past, the ironclad not a hundred yards away.

"Do you believe that Vuka did this thing?"

"It is not my place to say," Hulagar replied cautiously. "Hulagar, yes or no."

"Yes, my Qar Qarth."

Jubadi held Hulagar's gaze, the shield-bearer not turning away. "I see," Jubadi sighed.

"If I should fall in this campaign, would he be fit to lead my people to victory?"

"His
ka
is strong," Hulagar replied.

"Too strong."

Hulagar nodded.

"He went into the charge against my orders and then he held back at the last moment, at least that is what I heard."

"That is what I heard as well, my lord."

Another shot whistled past, but he ignored it.

Turning, he slammed his fist against the tree.

"Why was it not Mantu who lived?" he gasped.

"Bugglaah called his name," Hulagar said. "Fate is fate."

"Now Vuka is the only son of the bloodline left to

me," Jubadi said, looking straight into Hulagar's eyes. "When I die, he will be the Qar Qarth."

"Speak not of your death, Jubadi," Hulagar cautioned, "for the ancestors might heed it as a wish."

"Tamuka must swear to protect him, to guide him."

"He shall."

"There is no one who can replace Vuka."

Hulagar was silent.

"No one!" Jubadi roared, grabbing hold
of
Hulagar.

"I have served you, my Qarth, for more than
a
circling, but I am not the shield-bearer of the Zan."

"And if Tamuka should decide differently?"

"My lord, only the father may order the death of the son, only the council of my clan may order the death of a Qar Qarth. It is not Tamuka's to decide."

"I know that," Jubadi whispered.

Hulagar looked down at Jubadi's hands, and almost apologetically the Qar Qarth let go and stepped back. Another shot hummed in, slapping into the tree above Hulagar's head.

"To lose a shield-bearer to this type of shooting is one thing," Hulagar said, forcing a laugh, "but quite ignoble for the Qar Qarth."

Jubadi stepped back behind the tree, and Hulagar breathed easier.

"I know that Tamuka does not agree with how I fight this war," Jubadi said, leaning back against the trunk and taking the flask of fermented horse milk offered by his shield-bearer.

"He speaks from his
tu,
and that is how it guides him."

"I still do not understand it. We fight the cattle to preserve our way of life, the way of our ancestors, and yet he wishes to destroy that in the end. Granted, the Rus will most likely be destroyed, per-

Imps the Roum will live on as pets—they have been loo infected with this thing—but to slaughter all cat-lie around the world? And the hatred that burns in his heart, it is not something I understand, especially from a shield-bearer. There is a cold calculation there, not born of hot blood but rather out of the icy, rational mind of your order. Yet if we kill all cattle, then in the end we starve."

"It is a problem I see no answer to," Hulagar replied.

"Yet it must be answered," Jubadi replied. He looked down at the sword in his hand, the blade burnished, the leather of the grip rewrapped and fresh, and then he looked back across the river.

The forest started to lighten, and looking overhead Jubadi saw the gray clouds thinning, a patch of blue appearing for a moment.

He smiled.

"Storm's lifting."

Hulagar nodded, turning his face upward as a thin shaft of sunlight filtered through the trees. The smells here were so different. Unlike the endless sea of grass, here it was dank, rich with damp earth, trees that never shed their thin needles. He could not decide if he liked the smell or not.

"Ground should start drying out tomorrow; we'll be able to move up."

"I want us across the river within seven days," Jubadi announced, looking out on the flood-swollen river. "I don't trust these Yankees to stay beaten for long."

"Is everyone here?" Andrew asked, looking around the nave of the cathedral.

Kal nodded wearily, motioning for the guards to close the doors. Outside, the square was in turmoil. Casualty lists had at last been posted, and the screams of lamentation echoed through the building even as the oaken doors slammed shut. Three Suz-dalian regiments had been entirely wiped out—fifteen hundred men gone in an instant. Similar lists were going up throughout Rus, and panic was in the air.

"A hard day out there," Casmar said. Rising, he offered his blessing to the assembly of officers and senators, all going to their knees except the non-Catholic New Englanders and Marcus.

Andrew nodded his thanks and stepped before the group, looking around the church.

A strange place to be holding a council of war, but the Senate Hall had been hit by an airship only the hour before. If the timing had been slightly different they might have succeeded in annihilating the high command in one stroke. The high stain-glassed windows, depicting the lives of the Saints, of Kesus, shone with a soft translucent light, the church smelling of thousands of candles and incense burned down through the centuries. It had stood as the focal point of the Rus since they had come through the tunnel of light nearly eight hundred years before. Its time was finished.

"You all know that we are in serious trouble," Andrew began.

The men were silent.

"I fully expect that even if we fight it out on the Neiper we will lose that position as well—it is far less defendable than the Potomac. After that, I expect they will invest this city. They will have artillery unlike the Tugars. Even if we hold against that, it is only the middle of spring. The first harvest will not be in for months, and when it does come in it will be in their hands and not ours. We might hold out here for weeks, maybe even for months. But in the end ..." and his voice trailed off.

"And what about Novrod, Kev, Vyzama, all the other cities of the Rus?" a senator shouted from the back of the room. "Are you saying that Suzdal will be defended, and we will be left outside to fend for ourselves?"

Andrew held up his hand, nodding in agreement.

"I will not do that. To start with, all the Rus could not possibly hide in the city. Second, I will not ask regiments of Kev to abandon their city and defend this capital. We built fortifications around those cities in case a raiding group should break through. But if we try to defend all the cities, they will simply reduce them one by one."

The men looked at Andrew with open curiosity.

"Then what are you saying?" the senator replied.

"I propose to evacuate all of Rus, and move it east before the Merki arrive. All noncombatants will be shipped to Roum—half a million people. Marcus Licinius Graca has come back here to voice his agreement to this, to offer shelter, food for our people. All involved with the army, or who can work in any way, will be moved to our eastern borders of the White Hills, where we will make our next stand outside Kev. Anything we can use will go with us, that which they can use we will destroy. All factories will be torn apart. The tools, the engines, even the raw material will go with us, and will be rebuilt, if need be, in the open fields and kept working. Anything we can eat—cows, pigs, grain—all will go, and that which we cannot take will be destroyed. The wells we'll poison, we'll sow the ground with traps. We'll leave them nothing. With our navy the river, the sea, will still be ours, and we'll harry their every movement. The army will fight it out on the Neiper and buy the time for the rest to escape, to rebuild and to fight again. I am asking for two weeks from all of you, to give our people that time to escape.

And when we are gone what we leave behind will be a wasteland, in which those bastards will starve!"

Pandemonium broke out in the cathedral, and Andrew stood silently. He looked over at John Mina, with Ferguson and Bob Fletcher by his side. John stared straight ahead, not saying anything.

Andrew held up his hand and the room fell silent.

"It is the only alternative. We cannot hold the Neiper. I realize now that my dream of holding the Potomac was a vain hope as well."

He paused, waiting for the condemnation, the bitter recriminations to echo forth. He had already resolved within himself that if they came he would tender his resignation.

The room was silent. He looked into the eyes of all his generals, the ones whom he and Hans had elevated, to the senators he had created in writing a constitution, and at last to Kal, who had quietly risen from his chair to stand beside him.

"Lead us, Andrew Lawrence Keane," Kal said, his voice cold and clear, "Lead us and we shall follow."

The church was silent, and Andrew looked over at Father Casmar.

"Lead us, and I will follow."

He turned his gaze back to the others. Marcus stepped forward and grasped his hand. The men looked at him, grim-faced, filled with coldness, as if they had heard a call to battle. They came to their feet—first one, and then in seconds the entire assembly—and a cheer of defiance rang out. Andrew turned away, blinded by tears.

Chapter 8

"All of your ideas were easily stated," John Mina said, "but I do hate to be the one who starts to throw the cold water."

Andrew struggled to keep from falling asleep. The grandfather clock in the parlor ticked in slow rhythmic time. He picked up the hot tea that Kathleen had placed on the side table by his chair and took a sip. The parlor was almost too warm, for the fire in the stove which had been lit to drive out the cool chill of evening had made the room feel stuffy.

He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, glad to be out of the heavy woolen uniform and vest. Outside, in the town square of their little New England village in the heart of Suzdal, all was quiet. The mass meeting had gone smoothly enough, the men and their families going back home in silence. Ten of the men lost with Hans had families, and their homes were now dark. He tried not to think about the simple log cabin on the other side of the square, where he had spent many an evening in quiet talk. A guard was at the door, the inside dark and cold. He'd have to go over there to decide what should be done with the personal effects. He pushed the thought out of his mind. There was too much to worry about to allow grief to creep back in.

He had told them that all of it was lost, that they were to abandon their homes, which they had built with such a loving recreation of an older life, and go east into an unknown fate.

He looked around the room at his old friends, the companions who had been with him in this adventure from the beginning: Pat, John, Emil, Vincent, Chuck Ferguson, Kal, the staff officers, and the two new leaders, Marcus and Hamilcar; and of course Kathleen, who sat down beside him.

"Throw all the cold water you want," Andrew replied. "That's part of your job, John, to tell me what we can and cannot do. But this time I'm telling you it
has
to be done."

"I know that, Andrew."

"Then tell me how we'll do it."

"We have sixty-six locomotives, and of all rolling stock just about eight hundred cars. That's what we'll have to base all of this on.

"In all of Rus the census counted just over three-quarters of a million people. That's increased somewhat since last year." He looked over at Hamilcar. "By about thirty thousand."

"About two hundred thousand of those people live within a hundred miles of Kev, with fifty thousand of those within twenty miles of the city. Except for the infirm and the old, I'm proposing that nearly all of them walk out."

"What about their provisions?" Emil asked.