March to the Stars

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"You are an absolute idiot, Sor Teb," Lorak Tral snarled.

The general fingered his sword as he glared at the Scourge while smoke from the fires wafted even into the small interior meeting room. It hadn't taken long for the fire from the gate to spread throughout the upper temple district, especially with oil- and fire-covered soldiers running screaming in every direction. A brief, fortuitous deluge had helped control the worst of the flames, but the damage was extensive. And that didn't even count the damage to the gatehouse itself... or the loss of the High Priest. The jockeying for that position always led to social unrest, and in the wake of the chaos left by the retreating humans, the city balanced precariously on the brink of civil war.

"You may not speak to me that way, Lorak," the Scourge's reply made an insult of the naked name. "Whatever has happened, I am still the Scourge of God. I am the Chooser. Beware who you call an idiot."

"I'll call you anything I want, you idiot," the general told him in a voice of ice. "You may be the Scourge, but until this is settled, you are to refrain from any further action. Is that perfectly clear?"

"And who made you High Priest?" Teb snapped. He refused to show it, but a tiny trickle of fear had crept into his heart. Lorak was normally a rather self-effacing type; there must have been notable changes in the last hour or so for him to take this high a hand.

"He is not the High Priest," Werd Ras said quietly. The Flail, the head of the internal police, had kept out of most of the maneuvering for the succession, but he had eyes and ears everywhere.

"However," Ras continued, "a quorum of the full council has determined that he will have plenipotentiary authority to deal with this situation. And he is specifically ordered to bring the humans to ground. The council was... not impressed by your actions, Sor Teb. Endangering the Voice was idiotic. Doing so with too few guards simply compounded your idiocy. And deserting him when it was clear your plan had failed was inexcusable."

"You're going to try to stop the humans with your Sere vern?" Teb said to Lorak scornfully. "All you know is how to make pretty formations. The humans are headed for the Shin. They had one with them, disguised as a Shadem female. You do know what that means, don't you?"

"You make too much of the Shin," the general replied with equal scorn. "It is high time to teach those barbarians a lesson."

Teb's eyes widened.

"You are joking, right?" He turned to Werd Ras. "Tell me he's joking."

"The fact that there was a Shin in the group that killed the Voice was reported to us. In fact, there are some indications that it was the Shin who actually did the deed. Be that as it may, if the Shin aid the humans, they will be pursued to destruction. Messages have been forwarded to Queicuf and Thirlot and will be passed to the Shin. If the Vales aid the humans, they will be put to the torch, and all of them will be taken as Servants."

"So now you're Choosing, as well," Sor Teb said with a gesture of humor. "I suppose the Shin are just going to take this lying down?"

"I don't care how they take it," Lorak said. "It is high time that those barbarians learned who their masters are."

" 'Masters,' " Sor Teb repeated thoughtfully. " 'Masters.' You know that the last three times Kirsti tried to mount punitive expeditions against the Shin, they were cut off and slaughtered."

"That's because none of them insured their line of supply," Lorak replied with a gesture of contempt. "We'll set up Thirlot and Queicuf as fortified supply depots and maintain heavily guarded convoys into the mountains. Like the Scourge, the only thing the Shin know is raid and ambush. They won't be able to cut that line of supply, because—like your precious Scourge—they don't even know what 'line of supply' means."

"Ah, yes, that's us," Teb said, tossing a false-hand in a gesture of mock agreement. "Not much more than barbarians ourselves. Just one last question; you say you informed Queicuf and Thirlot. Does that mean you're just going to let them scurry all the way to the hills before you go after them?"

"It's impossible to mount a prepared assault in the time it will take them to travel that far," Werd said. "And what's happened here today is sufficient proof that a prepared assault will be necessary to overcome the humans alone, far less crush the Shin, if they should be stupid enough to offer them aid. So, yes, we're going to let them 'scurry to the hills.' If the garrison in Thirlot or Queicuf is able to stop them, all the better. If not, we'll inform the Shin that they can turn the humans over to us or face the consequences."

Sor Teb fingered his horns for a moment. He hadn't come from within the social hierarchy like Werd or Lorak. He'd gotten his start as a junior Scourge raider, and he knew the true fire of the mountain tribes far better than this idiot, who'd only seen Shin after they had been "gentled" by the Scourge. The plan might even work, because the Sere had a point about the Shin's inability to organize a large action. But as for the tribes' simply rolling over and baring their bellies... that was about as likely as the mountains suddenly going flat.

"I see," was all he said. "It's apparent I don't have anything to do here. I'll go to my quarters and remain there until summoned."

"We'll need a few of your personnel for guides," Werd Ras said. "You'll be sent the list of requirements. With the exception of that group, you are to keep your forces in barracks. Any movement on their part will be considered hostile by the council, and will be met with all due force."

Teb considered that for a moment, then shrugged. "Very well. Am I free to go?"

"For now," Lorak replied. "For now."

Roger slid off the civan and slapped its muzzle as it turned to take a bite out of him.

"Cut that out, you son-of-a-bitch, or I'll shoot you for dinner!"

Pahner shook his head at the prince's mount while the rest of their caravan continued steadily past them.

"I never did like having to worry about whether or not my transport was going to try to take chunks out of me," he observed. "I think I'll just go on walking, thank you very much."

"No decent way to keep up on foot. You're pretty much stuck to one part of the caravan if all you have is your own feet," the prince opined. He glanced at the pack ambulances swaying by, and his face tightened. "Any word on Cord?"

"I don't know, but I do know that it's time to pick his benan's brain," the Marine replied.

"Agreed." Roger strode over to his asi's stretcher and shook his head. The contraption was swung between two turom and had to be incredibly uncomfortable, even for someone who was unwounded, he thought, just as Doc Dobrescu appeared out of the column as if summoned by magic.

"How are you doing, Your Highness?"

"Fine, I suppose. Taking my cod liver oil, and all that. How are the casualties?"

"Most of them are either gone, or out of the woods, Your Highness," Dobrescu admitted. "St. John—Mark, that is—lost his right arm this time. An arquebus round, I think. He lost the left in Voitan, of course, just like the sergeant major. This one was low on the forearm, more lost his hand, really, and it should grow back fairly quickly. He'll be fully functional in a month or so. And we had one of the wounded Vashin expire—general systemic failure, I think."

"And Cord?" Roger asked, gesturing at the asi. Pedi was walking beside his stretcher, straight backed and stony faced. She looked the very dictionary image of the stoic tribesman, totally disinterested in asking quarter for herself or anyone else, yet she glanced occasionally at the shaman.

"Tough to tell," the medic admitted. "He took a solid hit, and the surgery was very rough and ready. Then there's the dosage on the anesthetic, and any secondary effects it might have, like increased bleeding. He's a tough old bird, but the emphasis on that could be on 'old.' If you know what I mean."

"Maybe, maybe not," Roger said with a sigh. "Do whatever you can, Doc."

"I won't ask if we could stop someplace, Sir," Dobrescu said to Pahner as the captain walked up. "I don't want to end up as somebody's lunch."

"You heard, I see," Pahner observed. "Yeah. Great guys, huh?"

"Gotta love civilization," Roger said, and gestured around. The ash had finally stopped falling, and the true expanse of the Valley of the Krath could be seen, opening out in a vast panorama before them.

The valley itself was at least a hundred kilometers wide, a broad U-shaped cut through the midst of rugged mountains, some of them rearing to well over five thousand meters. The Krath ran down its middle, a broad, silt-laden stream that fed and watered the valley via the repeated canals that ran up towards the flanking mountains.

The valley's floor and walls, though, were what caught the eye. As far as the eye could see, the valley was a patchwork of irrigation canals and tended fields. It was so intensively cultivated that not one square meter of land appeared to be unused. The majority of the houses, and all of the towns, were on the steep slopes of the mountains to leave every flat patch for cultivation, and each and every one was surrounded by growing greenery, most of it clearly edible.

The road itself followed the line where the flatter base of the valley started to climb up the mountain slopes. All of the towns they had passed had been evacuated before they arrived, leaving an eerie, unnatural feeling of ghost towns and mysterious disappearances. There was a sense of thousands, millions, of eyes watching from the distance, and there were actually a handful of visible Mardukans working in some of the more distant fields, plowing with turom or weeding rows of barleyrice and legumes.

Other than that, there wasn't a soul in sight.

The management of the valley—the regular roads, the neat villages, and the well tended canals—was arguably more frightening than the city of cannibals behind them, Roger thought. It was the visible sign of an entire country, a massive country of well-organized cannibals. After all the battles they'd fought against endless tides of barbarians on K'Vaern's Cove's continent, the thought of what "civilization" meant on this continent was horrifying.

"Civilization is either great, or truly terrible," he said, putting his thoughts at least partially into words. "Mediocre doesn't enter into it." He gazed out over the valley for a moment longer, then shook his head and looked over at Pedi. "Now on to the next battle," he said.

Pahner nodded and walked around the line of turom to touch Pedi on the arm.

"Ms. Karuse, could you join us for a moment?"

Pedi looked around at the Marine, then at the medic, who shrugged.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Dobrescu told her. "Right now, the best thing for him would be for us to stop. But that's not going to happen anytime soon."

"Very well," she said. She patted the covering over the shaman, then turned to Pahner and Roger as the ambulance moved on. "What can I do to help?"

"You know we're heading for the hills," Roger said. "What can you tell us about the route?"

Pedi obviously had to stop and think about that.

"What I know is all from traders and raiders. I've never traveled the hills myself." She paused until the prince nodded understanding of the qualification, then continued. "There's supposed to be a broad road to the town of Thirlot, where the Shin River drops through the Seisut Falls from the Vales to the valley of the Krath. There is a road up along the Shin, but it is closed by the citadel of Queicuf, and the town of Thirlot itself is walled, very heavily defended. You would have to take the gates, at least, and I don't think that's possible."

"You might be surprised," Roger told her. "We could probably take out the gates, but then we'd still have to fight our way through the city."

"And we probably don't have enough forces to do that," Pahner said. "We took the Krath in Kirsti by surprise, but fighting our way through a fully prepared town is something else."

"You could call upon them to surrender," the Shin said, rubbing her horns in thought. "If they refused, and you took them by storm, they would be liable for total destruction. If you created even a small breach, they would almost automatically have to surrender."

"That's a recognized law of war?" Pahner asked. "It sounds like it."

"Yes," the Shin answered. "The satraps fight all the time, and they don't want to destroy the cities. So they have elaborate rules about what is and isn't permissible, and what cities should and must do. Fortifications, also, but those are considered much harder to take. But even if Thirlot surrendered, you'd also have to fight your way through the stronghold of Queicuf, and that would be much harder."

"Two fortifications." Pahner pulled out a piece of bisti root and cut off a slice. He slipped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, then shook his head. "If this were a purely military party I could see it. But we've got a swarm of hangers-on and the human noncombatants to worry about, too. I'd really rather not risk it, under these circumstances."

"What kind of alternative do we have?" Roger asked.

"Up the mountains," Pedi replied, with a gesture to the east. "There's a small track that leads to the south side of the Mudh Hemh lands; it comes out near Nesru. The Krath have a curtain wall there to prevent Shin parties from taking the Shesul Pass, but the position is only lightly defended from this side."

"So you think we could punch them out of our way?" Pahner asked.

"Having witnessed your warriors in action, I feel sure of it," she replied. "But there are Shin raider parties on the other side of the wall, from Mudh Hemh and elsewhere. Those from Mudh Hemh, I can talk out of attacking us, if they announce their presence in advance. Those from other Vales might or might not recognize my authority, and there are other hazards. The route is lightly used, so it hasn't been cleared of nashul and ralthak.

"And what," Roger asked, "are nashul and ralthak?"

"Nashul are... burrower-beasts. They look like rock and attack by surprise. Very large, very hard to kill. Ralthak are fliers, very large. They both eat the high-turom, the tar."

"And if we take the route by the Shin?" Pahner asked.

"We will be headed directly to the Vale of Mudh Hemh," Pedi said with a gesture equivalent to a human shrug. "We will have to pass through the Battle Lands, and I have no idea what the traders in Nesru will think of that, but they're all under the control of Mudh Hemh, more or less. We shouldn't have trouble on that route. Not from Shin, at any rate. Thirlot and Queicuf are considered impregnable, though."

"I'm sure we could take them," Pahner said. "If we used plasma cannon to take down the gates."

"Not," Roger said. "Overhead."

"Precisely, Your Highness," Pahner said dryly. "That was in the nature of sarcasm."

"Oh," the prince replied with a smile. "And there I was thinking it was a test." He shrugged. "Whichever, the mountain route it is."