Mentats of Dune

Chapter 63 (In any major conflict, each side fights for its own cause)

The observant Mentat scouts gave Gilbertus Albans six hours’ advance warning of the approaching Butlerian force. He was not surprised to see the army on its way.

“I am always reassured when my Mentat projections prove to be accurate,” Gilbertus said to the robot’s memory core. “This time, though, I am saddened to be correct.”

Erasmus said, “The behavior of fanatics is extreme and irrational. Therefore, it is a paradox that they are so utterly predictable.”

Gilbertus could still retreat into his Memory Vault and identify the critical points where a different choice would have changed his fate, but that was a self-indulgent, time-wasting exercise. Perhaps he should have taken the robot’s advice and disappeared years ago. By establishing the Mentat School, he had cultivated a method of training that altered the very foundation of human thought — surely that was enough of an accomplishment for one person? It was too late now.…

Gilbertus donned his Headmaster robe and applied aging makeup to maintain appearances. “I am going to observe from the battlements. Stay safe here, and hidden.”

“I’ll be observing.” With his network of secret spy-eyes, Erasmus would see more than anyone else in the institution.

Preparing the defenses, the Mentat students had walled themselves into the compound, closed and secured the gates, drawn up the connector bridges, and checked all of the electronic systems, both aboveground and underwater. Thanks to their survival exercises, the trainees knew labyrinthine safe paths through the swamp, where any misstep would cause disaster. They were brave, wise, and imaginative — but not combat trained.

When Gilbertus stepped onto the decks that overlooked the surrounding marshlands, he saw that Manford had brought hundreds of armed followers. They came crowded on vehicles, rolling along the rugged road that became even more challenging when it reached the waterlogged ground. Most appeared to be mere footsoldiers, but he also spotted a number of elite Swordmaster fighters, including Anari Idaho.

The Butlerians thronged across the uncertain terrain. Some were piled aboard amphibious vehicles that could be used as attack boats on the marsh-lake side of the school, while other vehicles would approach the high walls around the entrance. Perhaps Manford Torondo would be cautious, perhaps he would be brash and confident. He often exhibited chaotic behavior.

As they stopped at the main gates, Swordmaster Anari Idaho placed Manford into his saddle on her shoulders and stepped forward, carrying him to the barrier. The legless leader shouted up to the closed gate, “Headmaster Albans! I understand you wish to have a philosophical discussion with me.”

From his high observation deck, Gilbertus looked down at his opponent. “You brought a great many people for a philosophical debate. Are they all trained in rhetoric?”

“They provide moral support.”

Gilbertus knew this was simply a dance of words and would accomplish nothing. Nevertheless, he played it out, gleaning small details, assessing the mood of the Butlerians, studying their behavior. “I’ve known you for years, Leader Torondo. You have enough intelligence to hold your own in a discussion. I will invite you and your Swordmaster inside so we can debate. These other spectators are not invited.”

Anari turned her head and said something quickly to Manford, but he rested a reassuring hand on the side of her face, tenderly stroking her close-cropped hair. He shouted back up to the wall, “Why aren’t my followers welcome in your school? If you won’t let them accompany me, then I suggest you come down here. Open the gates and talk with me, face-to-face.”

“If I come out alone, do you absolutely guarantee my safety?”

“God will guarantee your safety.”

“I prefer a more direct commitment from you,” Gilbertus said. “I’m not one who can demand guarantees from God.”

“We could destroy your school at any time,” Manford taunted, “just as we ransacked Baridge and burned down the old Suk School on Salusa Secundus. But the Emperor’s sister is with you, and Anna Corrino must be kept safe — in our custody.”

“She will be safe so long as your followers don’t ransack the school,” Gilbertus said. “And if you refuse to guarantee my safety when I come to speak with you, then you will have a long wait.”

Gilbertus knew that if he opened the secure gates, the Butlerians would surge forward, not caring how many students they sacrificed to get to him. He decided a siege was preferable to an invasion, or his personal surrender.

Realizing they were at an impasse, Manford withdrew, without any parting comment.

THE BUTLERIANS HAD brought a supply train with them and worked like drones to set up camp, laying down tarpaulins in the soft swamplands, erecting simple shelters, preparing food from cook wagons. They were ready to be here for days, weeks, months.

On the second night, Anari Idaho circled though the swamp with three of her fellow Swordmasters, scouting the imposing school. She had been trained as a Swordmaster on Ginaz, and had learned to fight in difficult environments, but even the rugged Ginaz islands were not such a festering set of dangers as this soggy, uncertain ground.

Alys Carroll and other faithful Mentat trainees had warned about the hazards and predators around the school, but Anari disregarded the worries of mere contemplators. She and her companions scouted for vulnerabilities in the darkness, looking for ways to break into the defiant Mentat School, all the while ready with their swords to fight any swamp predators that challenged them. Her group slipped around the tangled trees, weaving their way into the sangrove morass that was closest to the school. Wearing headbands with dim lights, they splashed through the shallow water, which rarely rose above their shins.

But Anari had underestimated the treacherous terrain. She was so alert for swamp dragons and spotted cats that she paid little attention to the glimmer of silver that flickered through the water channels. The voracious fish swept around their legs — and then bit. Razorjaws!

Anari was in the rear of the group, and she sprang up onto the curved sangrove roots, her lower legs already badly sliced. Blood dripped down her calves into the water and drove the predatory swimmers into a frenzy. The razorjaws were attacking the other cursing Swordmasters, ripping their hamstrings, leaping up to attach themselves to exposed skin. When one of the Swordmasters fell into the water, the boiling froth turned red in the collective light of the headlamps.

Anari tried to work her way forward, still balanced on the knobby roots, but her leg wounds were too serious. She grabbed the hand of a companion who flailed for help, but by the time she hauled him out, half of his body had been stripped of skin, and he died.

Anari tore part of her garment into makeshift bandages for her bleeding legs, and tediously picked her way back, never leaving the woven obstacle course of sangrove roots. Along the way, as the shadows increased, she watched the silver flickers of razorjaws in the shallow water below, following her drops of blood. The ravenous fish trailed her, hoping she would slip back into the shallow channel. But she made it to solid ground.

She reached Manford’s camp feeling the weight of her failure, but determined to try again. “We won’t be defeated by fish,” she said, as a battlefield medic cleaned her wounds and stitched the largest slashes, then wrapped her legs. She asked for no anesthetic, but simply endured. She was the only survivor of the scout party.

Seated on a chair inside the medical tent, Manford observed Anari, showing great concern for her. “I want you to be more careful. I can’t lose my most loyal warrior … and best friend.”

Inside with them, Alys Carroll was pale but indignant. “You should have heeded my warning. I could have shown you a safe path. Headmaster Albans trained me in the school’s defenses against enemies. I know how to penetrate those walls — and how to get past the obstacles around them.”

With her legs wrapped and the wounds sealed, Anari insisted on going back out before dawn. “Very well, we’ll try again. This time, you will lead, Alys.” She glanced over her shoulder at Manford and said, “The mind of man is holy — and the blood of my enemies is bright red.”

Refusing to acknowledge her injuries and forcing herself to walk without a limp, Anari took another Swordmaster team, and this time the Mentat trainee guided them through hillocks of marsh grass, over fallen logs that bridged rivulets of water. Carroll flitted along, confident in the placement of her feet, while Swordmasters followed.

The woman reached a wider channel that served as a moat guarding the Mentat School. “There are stepping-stones just beneath the surface. You can’t see them with all the peat and debris in the water, but if you know where to place your feet, we can cross. Watch where I step.” Carroll flashed them a determined grin. “It will look as if we’re walking on water.”

She went forward. Anari followed her into the channel, and the Swordmaster’s foot found a flat stepping-stone, barely submerged and unseen. Solid. The Mentat student picked her way forward, and the Swordmasters copied her steps, forming a line across the expanse of water.

Carroll was ready to take her next step, but Anari called for her to pause, and gestured for everyone else to stop. She pointed at floating black forms, mostly submerged, in the water nearby. Anari counted four. “Those are not fallen logs.”

Alys Carroll’s eyes widened. “Swamp dragons.”

The shapes drifted aimlessly. One floated closer to the Butlerian Mentat, who had frozen in place. But as the monster came close, Anari pounced onto the stepping-stone next to Carroll and thrust with her sword. When she stabbed the armored creature, it did not resist.

Anari plunged her blade again, looking for blood, sure that the struggle would attract the other swamp dragons. But the shape simply bobbed and drifted away. Anari snagged it with the point of her sword and pulled the thing closer.

It was indeed a swamp dragon: a hideous, scaled creature with powerful jaws and long fangs … but it was already dead, a preserved specimen, dissected and stuffed.

“Merely a decoy to frighten us,” Carroll said. “A trick from the Headmaster.”

Anari nodded. “A stalling tactic. But it won’t work for long.”

Carroll turned forward again, scanning the starlit water ahead. “Follow me.” She moved to the next submerged stepping-stone, then jumped to a third and a fourth. Another fake swamp dragon drifted toward them. Anari stabbed it with her sword just to make sure, and the stuffed specimen floated away.

The Swordmaster commandos followed on the precise stepping-stones. Anari watched the placement carefully and imitated Carroll. The other woman moved ahead, jumping confidently until they were halfway across the width of the waterway. Then she gasped in surprise and fell in. Splashing and flailing around, she tried to locate the stepping-stone. “It was here! The Headmaster must have moved the stones. He—”

Anari swung her head, alert. “Look out!”

One of the floating swamp dragons was not so listless after all, but had been lying in wait for its prey to make a mistake. Struggling to pull herself out of the water, Carroll turned as the creature surged out of the brown slurry, lunging for her. The monster hooked its powerful jaws on to her torso and crunched down, barely giving her time for a whimpering scream before she vanished underwater.

Anari didn’t know where the next stepping-stone might be, and she couldn’t fight that creature in the murky water. The other commandos, poised on unseen stepping-stones, watched the swamp dragon attack, then began a swift retreat. Many of them missed the hidden stones and slipped into the water, which only increased their panic. Then someone imagined he saw razorjaws swimming around them and yelled out. If the nearby swamp dragon hadn’t already had its meal, Anari’s followers would all have been killed in their frenzy to escape.

Anari remembered her Swordmaster training clearly, focused her thoughts, and made herself calm. She forced herself to recall where the stepping-stones were behind her, and jumped from one to the next to the next. She barely caught the last one on its edge, swayed to catch her balance, and heaved herself onto solid ground again while the rest of the scout party splashed and crawled to the shore.

Disgusted with herself, Anari looked back at the still-untouched Mentat School.

GILBERTUS REMAINED ON the battlements far into the night. Flickers of light, splashing, and screams on the sangrove swamp side told him that the Butlerians had made an ill-advised sortie. He hadn’t needed to lift a finger to respond. The swamp and the marsh lake provided all the defenses the school needed for now.

Next to him, Anna Corrino gazed into the darkness, listening to the sounds. “Our little trick worked. That is comforting.” They were the only two who knew that the decoy swamp dragons had been Erasmus’s idea.

Gilbertus pondered whether he should lie to reassure her, but decided to be honest and forthright. “This is only going to get worse, Anna. Much worse.”