WHUFF … CHUFF … WHUFFT, chuff, chuff …
I kept looking toward the west, trying to see when I might be able to pick out the famed towers of Inequital.
No steam freighter guaranteed a smooth ride. Each crack in the stone pavement, each joint, translated into a jolt high above the road.
The closer the convoy tracked the Eastern Highway toward Inequital, the more destruction and the less life there were. Bremarlyn had been bad enough, with the Academy a still-smoking ruin and the western half where Kryrel and Hargin and Solbar and so many classmates had lived yet another welter of arson and explosive devastation.
As the afternoon began to fade, the steamers reached two low stone gates, heavily weathered and each standing in a pile of sand. The wind picked up, whistling slightly and coming from the west. I nearly gagged again, cold as the air was across my face, from the odor of destruction and mold.
Belatedly, I recognized where we were as the highway widened. The gates marked the edge of the Imperial Preserve, but there were no trees, no bushes, no flowers. Even beyond them, where the towers should have stood, there was only dust and ash and destruction.
My stomach had taken too many shocks. This time, as the scale of the destruction hit me, it only turned over once or twice in protest. At the same time, the total absurdity of the colonel-general’s plans seemed even more apparent.
We
were going to take the fight to an enemy that had leveled the largest city in our planet’s history? An enemy that had done so without a casualty? An enemy we had no way of even finding?
“We’ll be taking the road on the left at the crest of the next hill …” Carlis was telling the rating at the steamer’s controls. “ … leads toward Mount Persnol …”
I looked back toward the flattened low hills, still not believing that nothing remained of Inequital, nothing of the capital where my mother had disappeared.
The steamer lurched, jamming me into the side of the sentry box as it turned onto the narrower stone road that headed directly south toward the mountains. My mother had called them hills, comparing them most unfavorably to the Bardwalls of Eastron.
“The Bardwalls are mountains, Sammis,” she had said. “Compared to them, most of the mountains of Westra are mere hills.” Strangely, in
retrospect, I had never asked how she knew. She knew so much, often revealed merely in passing, that it had never occurred to me to ask until I no longer could.
The wind began to pick up, colder than in the valley. By the time we reached the crest of the second hill, I had refastened all the clips on my parka, and there were traces of rime ice along the depressions beside the road.
The road, not quite wide enough for two big freighters to pass comfortably, looked older than the Eastern Highway, with actual ruts worn in the stone. How long that had taken I could not guess, but it meant that the road probably predated the Westron Monarchy and might have even been built when some Eastron Duke ruled the area.
Ahead, to the right, on my side, I could see a lump or pile of something near the crest of the third hill. Each hill was a little higher than the one before. The fences were still in good repair, untouched by the fires that had gutted the plantation houses and the freeholder’s houses.
I focused the telescope on a lump off the shoulder of the road—a burned-out steamer, reduced to a heap of ceramic parts and tubing, and ashes from the now-burned frame. A non-military vehicle, without the metal framing of a ConFed or Security steamer.
When we were within a dozen rods, I saw the gaping holes in the tubing, holes that could only have come from military weapons. The rust was not as heavy as on the wrecks at Bremarlyn, and the ashes were still nearly black.
I glanced down at Carlis, who watched the way ahead as intently as the lookouts, and wondered if the steamer had been merely trying to escape the ConFeds. Since Carlis was not smiling, he hadn’t had anything to do with it.
Not one of the ConFeds, including the other troopers, gave the wrecked steamer more than a passing glance. I saw a glint of metal, like a buckle or pin, in the ashes. Then we were past the wreck and heading downhill again.
The road was quiet, except for the sounds of the convoy. Not even a single grossjay appeared on the wooden fences or by the scattered evergreens. Nor did any ground squirrels poke their snouts from burrows. I didn’t see any burrows, either.
With each hill came fewer fences, fields, and meadows—and more trees. Older and taller trees. With each hill, Carlis’s lips clinched tighter. And the shadows got longer, and the wind colder.
And I got hungrier, my stomach tightening into a dull aching knot.
As the convoy neared the top of a particularly long hill, with the steamer protesting more than usual, I caught sight of some life. Short
piles of logs were laid out in stacks beside the road. Tree stumps lined both sides of the old highway, as did piles of ashes, whipped by the gusty wind like snow, where the brush had been burned.
“Camp coming up!” Carlis half-bellowed.
I curled my feet in my boots, trying to keep them from getting too numb. With my luck, and because my guts had rebelled so much, I was facing an even longer wait, if Selioman had been correct. Even if I hadn’t puked my guts all over the freighter, at least twice Carlis had seen me losing control.
That probably meant cleanup detail.
Twheet! Twheet, twheet, twheet!
I jumped, banging my sore thigh against the sentry box from the piercing whistle.
“Slow down. Watch for the flag on the right. The entry road is narrow. Take it easy.” Carlis was squinting into the twilight, leaning forward.
I saw the flag before he did. “Flag on the right, sir! About twenty rods up, sir!”
“Slow it down.” Carlis ordered the rating.
The steamer slowed and lurched, and I banged up against the sentry box again.
The wind gusts had subsided to a steady moaning, and my breath was beginning to form frost clouds. Even with the extra space provided by the felling of the trees nearest the old highway, I felt hemmed in by the height of those remaining, many of which towered close to fifteen rods above the plateau. Most of the stumps were broader than I was tall.
Black oaks grow slowly. I remembered one which had stood in front of our house, less than two handspans thick. My father told me that he had planted it himself when he had been about my age.
After the turn the convoy was headed west again, along the narrower stones of the side road toward the almost totally faded orange glow of a sun that had set behind the mountain hills. Another kay before brought us to a stone wall. The stones were gray-black, and the old-fashioned parapets by the gate looked down on me a lot more than I looked down to the ground.
Just the area in front of the closed and timbered gate was illuminated by the yellow of the etheline lights. The guard stations and the walls were dark.
The freighter sounded its whistle again, and I jumped.
The big freighter lurched to a stop.
Outside the gate, a single sentry appeared. Several lights flashed along the parapets to indicate that there were more guards waiting. Still, I
thought the whole exercise was stupid. A raiding party would try any place but the front gate.
The walls dated back before the Resurgence, probably to before the time of the Eastron occupation. I figured they were that old because of the thickness. While the secrets of powder and guncotton had survived the ups and downs of Queryan history, with each fall more metal had been lost, and the struggling Westron baronies could not afford to use iron or lead shells, not if they wanted other more pressing tools, like lathes and pumps and steam engines. Stone balls were fired from the few bombards that could be sledged from siege to siege. Thick walls tended to defeat the use of the bombards.
“Identify yourself!” demanded the guard wearing the purple uniform of a Security officer.
“ConFed detachment two, sent by Colonel-General Odin Thor. The password is ‘Vanish.’” Carlis’s voice was merely a half-bellow.
One of the lights on the wall played over Carlis and the rating at the freighter controls, then dropped down to illuminate the stone pavement leading to the gate.
Creakkkk
…
urrummmbbblle
… The gate began to open. The seco vanished back into the wall.
“Follow the line of torches to the barracks,” called another voice. “Someone will meet you there to guide you to the unloading docks and the maintenance facilities.”
Carlis nodded and grunted. The rating began torquing up the engine pressure, and, by the time the gates were fully open, we were rolling toward the darkness on the other side.
Whatever the installation had been before, it was big. In the early evening darkness, I could not see where the walls ended, only that they continued north-south without reaching a corner or turning point within light or shadow distance.
“Keep it slow …” added Carlis.
The line of torches curved to the right. To the left ran another road or street. Both seemed to be lined with foundations of a series of buildings long since taken down. Buildings that had been substantial—if the stone foundations were any indication.
Once the freighter came to the bottom of the incline, the road and the line of torches ran straight to a long two-story stone building able to hold hundreds of troopers. A steamer runabout, with functioning headlamps, waited before the building.
“Welcome to the project.” The voice came from the steamer, clear, penetrating, ironic, and distinctly feminine. A woman stood on the
running board of the steamer next to the empty driver’s seat.
Even in the dim light from the torches and the freighter controls I could see Carlis’s surprise. The forcer said nothing.
“Follow me,” added the woman, swinging into the steamer in a single fluid motion.
“Go ahead. Follow her,” snapped Carlis.
The last glimpses of twilight had completely faded by the time we traversed another half kay of old stone roads and right angle turns.
The convoy finally chuffed to a halt behind another ancient stone structure.
“Download team!”
I winced, wondering if Carlis would add me to the unloading and cleanup party for my failures to keep my stomach totally in line, but he glanced at me, than glanced away. “Road sentries—dismissed! Report to Subforcer Henriod for quarters and grub assignments. Engineers! Report to Subforcer Weldin …”
Carlis’s instructions went on and on, but I put the sentry box in order, shouldered the projectile gun and climbed down. My legs were shaky, and I was very careful with the handholds and footholds. By the time my feet touched the hard pavement stones, Carlis was barking more orders to move the freighters to the unloading docks.
I retrieved my pack from the locker under the sentry box. It felt like a load of stones.
“Road sentries. Answer up.” Henriod’s voice was loud, but tired. “Rarden?”
“Here, sir!”
“Eltar?”
“Here, sir!”
“Sammis?”
“Here, sir!”
Henriod ran through a dozen names, then stopped, and cleared his throat. “We have quarters in the barracks building. On the second floor. Take any bunk you want in the open area. The rooms with double or single bunks are for officers, forcers, or subforcers.
“You’ll have to walk back there. Stay in groups of three, at least. Keep your weapons until Janth and I get there with the locks for the armory. Late mess after unloading.” He looked over the sorry appearance we presented. “Dismissed.”
Eltar, Farren, and I walked back together, following the line of torches. The torches were attached to wooden piles that had once held broadcast light bulbs. The bulbs and their metal holders had been removed.
After less than twenty rods, my shoulders began to ache from the weight of the light pack.
“Sammis?”
“Unnh?”
“You came from Bremarlyn … ?”
I didn’t want to answer that one, but not answering would have been worse. Just from Carlis’s comments, I had picked up on how little the ConFeds cared for the gentry.
“Um-hummm,” I answered.
“Funny, you don’t act that way,” mused Eltar.
I shrugged. What could I say, really?
“You really gentry, Sammis?” asked Farren. He had a nose that made night-eagles look snub-nosed.
“It depends on how you figure it. My father was. My mother wasn’t. I hope I got her common sense along with his name.”
That got a chuckle from Farren.
“What’s it like, being gentry?” asked Eltar.
Terwittt, terwittt.
Some night bird punctuated Eltar’s question.
I stumbled on a rough paving stone, although, between torches and stars, there was certainly enough light for me.
“I never thought of it that way,” I finally answered. “I knew we had more than other people, but at … school there were sons of farmers, tradesmen, and mechanics. We lived in a large house, but many were larger. My father was from a long line of gentry, but my mother wasn’t. She used to say that she didn’t even know her own grandparents. Until everything fell apart, I never gave it much thought …” I cleared my throat. That was difficult because it was dry. “Why?”