Men of War

Chapter Nine

Hans had told him he would enjoy it, and he was right. He had never liked horses all that much. An officer was expected to ride, and so he did, but trying to keep a comfortable seat aboard a monster the size of a Clydesdale was impossible, especially after the wound to his hip.

Riding an ironclad was different. It bounced the guts out of him as they rumbled up and down over the vast undulating plains, but at the moment he didn’t care … he was back in action, and that’s what counted.

Cresting a low bluff the driver down below halted their machine. To Vincent’s left, sprawled on the ground, were half a dozen Bantag, torn apart by Gatling fire, their mounts dead as well. The Hornet that had done the job came sweeping back from the east, wagging its wings as it passed overhead, most likely returning back to base, its ammunition spent.

Moving stiffly, Vincent turned, holding the side of the turret, letting his legs dangle over the side of the machine, and he dropped clumsily to the ground. It was good to be out of the machine. The open hatch atop the turret tended to act as a chimney, drawing heat up from the main deck below, where the boiler was. The dry sage crackled beneath his feet, the pungent smell clearing away the stench of hot oil and kerosene.

He raised his field glasses. Far ahead, several miles away, he could see them, six umens identified so far, sixty thousand mounted warriors of the Horde … and all of them confused as hell.

The breakout had started at dawn. A rocket barrage of five hundred rounds had preceded the attack, and then fifty-two ironclads led the way. They’d lost six in that opening assault, but within minutes their firepower, combined with the support of twenty Hornets, had torn a gaping hole in the Bantag lines a mile wide, the enemy fleeing in disorganized panic.

Following them had come the entire 3rd Corps, moving by regiments in a huge block formation, the same system Hans had used the year before during the withdrawal from the Green Mountains. But this time they had additional artillery with them, wagons for supplies, in addition to the Gatlings aboard the ironclads and in the air.

It was a different kind of warfare for a different age, Vincent realized. Varinna had grasped that, and it was beginning to crystallize in his own mind. This was more like ships maneuvering at sea than the old style of battles on land. Keep the ironclads together except for a dozen scattered around the square of 3rd Corps to provide fire support and to act as rally points.

An ironclad ground up the slope beside him and came to a stop, steam hissing from the safety valve, the top door open, a head sticking out.

“Bastards don’t know what to do!” Timokin grinned, sitting up in the turret of his machine and wiping his face with a sweat-stained rag. He climbed out and dropped to the ground next to Vincent. Other machines were climbing the slope behind them, moving in a giant V formation a half mile wide. It was a grand sight, smoke billowing, cleated wheels cutting into the dry turf, gun ports open, three-inch rifles and Gatlings protruding and ready for action.

Behind them all of 3rd Corps was marching in open block formation. Just inside the giant square six batteries moved at an easy pace, ready to swing out and deploy if needed, while in the center of the vast square were the wagons loaded down with extra fuel, ammunition, and medical supplies. The lone regiment of mounted troopers weaved back and forth outside the square along the flanks and rear, troopers occasionally reining in to trade a couple of shots with Bantag riders who ventured too close to the formation. Overhead four Hornets circled lazily, ready to swoop down if the Bantag should try to venture a charge.

He could sense the exhilaration in the ranks. Third Corps had stayed in Tyre throughout the winter, avoiding the gutting of the army at Roum and the disaster at Capua. If anything, the men had felt abandoned, forgotten on a secondary front, and after nine months in the siege lines were glorying in a chance to prove something.

Gregory offered Vincent his canteen, and he gladly took it. He had drained his own canteen hours ago and pride had kept him from asking for more water from his crew below, who were suffering in far worse heat. Too many months behind a desk he realized.

The water was hot, but he didn’t care, rinsing the oily taste out of his mouth and then taking a long gulp.

“This is a damn sight better than Capua,” Gregory said, wincing slightly when Vincent tossed the canteen back. “Type of country these machines were made for. not the tangle of trenches and traps up north.”

Vincent nodded in agreement.

He continued to scan the enemy. Plumes of dust were rising from the west several miles behind the column. They are most likely detaching more troops away from Tyre to follow, he thought. Maybe even abandoning the siege completely except for a small covering force, figure to pin us out here with everything they have and wipe us out.

In spite of Gregory’s enthusiasm and the fact that he had planned this operation himself, Vincent did feel a shiver of nervousness. It was one thing to calculate all this out on paper and maps; it was another thing to be out here now. Hans had been right, it was different down here. North, in Roum, the land was settled: There were roads, villas, towns, the typical orderliness of the Roum, everything squared off and proper. This was vast unsettled land, undulating prairie as far as the eye could see, like what he imagined Kansas or the Nebraska Territory to be. A place for the ironclads, but not for a column of infantry on foot.

It was a strange balance. The Bantag did not have a single ironclad on this front. The few rocket launchers they had were expended, and none of their artillery could stand in the open against the attack. Yet once mounted they could ride rings around the machines and the marching column of 3rd Corps. He looked back to the west, where 3rd Corps, nearly eleven thousand men, were moving through the dry knee-high grass, looking like an undulating blue wave traversing a green-brown sea.

Neither side could now come to grips with the other.

The Bantags did have one serious advantage, though-they could chose the place to stand and fight. He could not. They had mobility both tactically and strategically, his side had the firepower. If they could bring up firepower as well, it could turn deadly. And that was part of the plan as well.

He walked in front of his machine, surveying the ground, remembering the maps he had studied so intently that they were' etched clearly in his mind. They were just under twenty miles out from Tyre, a damn good march for the first day. A shallow stream was directly ahead, several hundred yards down the slope, its water dark and muddied by the passing of the Horde riders.

“We camp here,” Vincent announced.

“We’ve still got four hours or more of daylight, we could make another eight to ten miles.”

Vincent shook his head.

“No. This is far enough. Besides, I want the men dug in, stockade with sod walls, and we’ve got water down there for the night. The next stream is six miles farther on, and if the Bantags have any sense, they’ll fight us for it.”

“Grand, and we chew them apart.”

“There’s time for that, plenty of time,” Vincent said absently. “Let the pressure build some more first. Besides, we’re not the main show, that’s Hans’s job. Remember, we’re the diversion, the bait. We bed down early tonight, do a hard march tomorrow, and should nearly reach the head of the rail line they’re driving west from the Great Sea. Jurak has undoubtedly figured by now that we are attacking here. He might already have dispatched troops and ironclads from Xi’an and Fort Hancock to converge and meet us in defense of that rail line. Let’s give him time to get there and make the show easier for Hans.”

Hans. He pulled out his watch. He should be hitting just about now, he thought. God help him.

It wasn’t the time to vomit but the last two hours had been pure hell. Leaning over weakly, he retched, but there was nothing left to give. The ship bucked and surged, rising up on another thermal of hot air, then plunging back down.

“Is that Xi’an?” Jack shouted.

“What?”

“Damn it, Hans, pull yourself together.”

He nodded bleakly, looking forward. They’d been over land for the last hour, bisecting the arcing curve of the river up to Xi’an. The cloud cover had been building since early afternoon, forcing them to drop lower, Jack expressing increasing anxiety about the prospect of a thunderstorm. If a storm did come up, it could wipe out the entire mission.

Hans raised his field glasses, bracing his elbows on the forward panel, trying to compensate for the unceasing motion of the airship, which was bobbing like a cork on a windswept sea.

It had to be it. In spite of the surging motion of the ship he caught glimpses of a vast walled compound, ships anchored, and for a brief instant a place that looked all too chillingly familiar, the small fortress village half a dozen miles below Xi’an, where he had holed up after escaping from the slave camps. The aerosteamer steadied for a moment, and the world beneath him seemed to come into sharp focus. The city was spread out along the east bank of the river, ancient brick walls glowing red in the late-afternoon sun.

Dozens of ships lined the docks below the bluffs, most of them galleys, several steamers, the rest traditional Chin junks. A dark seething mass swarmed the docks, looking like a stirred-up nest of ants … Chin slaves. From the air the city had a fairy-tale quality to it, a towering pagoda in the center, buildings with steeply pitched red-tile roofs, dozens of small temples dotting the skyline. Yet as he steadied his field glasses he could sense, more than actually see, that a fair part of the city was abandoned, derelict homes, weed-choked streets, collapsed roofs. Even as they labored for their masters the pathetic residents of Xi’an were dying, chosen for the moon feast, transported to work on the railroads, factories, and supply lines, or simply worked to death.

Checking again on the village where he had fought off the Bantag till help arrived, he gauged the distance up the river. There was no doubt about it: They were approaching Xi’an, main supply base for the Bantag Horde, the transition point for supplies coming from the heart' of the Chin realm.

Two hundred miles eastward was that black heart of the Bantag Empire, the vast prison camps and factories where millions of Chin slaves labored to support the war. That heart was his ultimate goal, but first he had to seize this city. Everything the Bantag made to support their war effort had to come through here, off-loading from the trains to be loaded on ships that would transport it across the Great Sea, five hundred miles northward to be off-loaded yet again for the final run to Capua. This was the weak link in that vast chain.

This was the linchpin of Varinna’s plan. A raid deep into the realm of the Bantag to seize the docks, sink the ships, burn the supplies-to cut the precious lifeline. Vincent was the diversion, to present Jurak with two threats, the prospect of their seizing a base on the Great Sea and with luck draw off some forces before his own raid struck. If Vincent was successful, all the better.

“Where do we land?” Jack cried.

“Damned if I know,” Hans replied. “Can’t you remember?”

“I only flew over the damned place once, and that was a year ago. The second time I flew to where you were, then got the hell out. Damn it, Hans, we should have sent in at least one reconnaissance flight before doing this.”

Hans shook his head. One such flight might have tipped their hand. This one was going to be blind.

“Think they’re on to us?” Jack asked.

“Have to be by now; they must have coast watchers reporting us coming in.”

The city was just several miles out. Hans anxiously scanned the riverbanks, looking for a place to touch down that was close enough that they could directly storm the harbor area.

Nothing.

“We’re losing another ship.”

It was their top gunner calling in.

“She’s going down. Damn, it’s a Bantag flyer!”

His voice was drowned out by the staccato roar of a Gatling, the vibration of the topside gun firing shaking the cabin.

Jack held the ship steady, still aimed straight at the city, while anxiously scanning the sky above, looking for the enemy ship.

“There, north of the city wall, looks like an airfield!” Hans cried.

“That’s it then! We’re going in!” Jack shouted. He nosed the ship down, picking up speed.

“Got him! He’s breaking to starboard. He’s burning!”

Hans leaned forward, looking out the side window and caught a glimpse of a twin-engine airship, trailing fire, going down.

“Topside, how many still with us?”

“Somewhere around thirty-five I think.”

Hans said nothing. Better than he hoped but still only 350 men.

They dropped through two thousand feet, the wires on the wings singing.

Hans cleared the speaker tube to the cargo department.

“Ketswana, get ready!”

“About time.”

Engines howling, the airship leveled out a hundred feet above the marshy western shore, then turned as they reached the river just south of the city and started to race straight in. Straight ahead he could see startled faces looking up, Chin slaves on the docks and around the warehouses, hands raised, pointing at the incoming assault. A scattering of Bantag were running along the walls. A stream of tracers snapped past the open window, startling Hans, it was one of the gunners flying behind them sweeping the walls.

“Fly us over the ships, then bank around into the airfield,” Hans shouted.

“Why?”

“I want the Chin on the docks to see our insignia so they know what the hell is happening.”

Jack banked the ship, turning more easterly, heading straight in toward the city, then banked over sharply, port-side wing dropping down. They were directly above the docks lining the river below the city walls, white stars of the Republic exposed on the bottom side of the wings, an insignia clearly different than the human skulls of the Bantag. In spite of the howling of the engines and the shriek of the wind, he distinctly heard thousands of voices rising up, excited cries of hope.

The nausea was gone, he hung on, watching as land, river, city, and sky wheeled in front of him. A bullet snapped through the cabin, shattering a window, glass flying.

They leveled out, heading straight toward a row of galleys berthed side by side, each of them loaded down with two land ironclads. A steamer, looking vaguely like an old-style Mississippi riverboat, towing two barges was out in the middle of the river, barges loaded down with crates behind it, heading downstream. Again the staccato roar of the Gatling from above; tracers tore into the first barge. It ignited in a towering fireball, debris soaring hundreds of feet heavenward.

“God damn that idiot!” Jack screamed, banking away from the explosion. “Cease fire up there!”

The boy was shouting with joy, tracers sweeping into the second barge, igniting the ammunition aboard that one as well. It looked like a vast fireworks show gone berserk. Jack continued to turn away, flying up over the top of the city wall, gape-mouthed Bantag looking straight up. Swarms of Chin on the docks were running, panic-stricken.

Hans was filled with a mad exhilaration, holding on to the side railing as Jack banked sharply in the opposite direction, leveling out, sweeping along the city wall, Bantag so close below that Hans could not resist the urge to stick his hand out the side window and offer a universal rude gesture. He was tempted to man the forward gun but knew he had to stay focused on the battle. Down in the narrow twisting lanes of the tightly packed city he could see hundreds pouring out of buildings into the streets, pointing.

They reached the northwest corner of the wall. The airfield was less than a quarter mile ahead, but now they were coming in at a right angle to the long axis. A Bantag air machine was starting to lift off, crawling into the sky, turning toward them.

Jack slammed the throttles back, banked to the west out over the river again until they reached the opposite shore. He then slapped the wheel in the opposite direction. The airship seemed to stand on its starboard wing as it pivoted, turning to line up on an easterly heading, aiming straight at the airfield. Jack eased the throttles back even farther.

Hans lost sight of the Bantag airship, felt a shudder, and caught a glimpse of a tracer snapping past, return fire from above. As they turned, he saw one of their aerosteamers going down, port wing folding up, caught in the fireball explosion of the barges, the machine falling like a moth with a wing torn off. The ship crashed into the river, the blue glow of a hydrogen fire soaring up, consuming the canvas and wicker framework.

The sky was filled with airships, flying about like a swarm of confused and angry bees, heading in every possible direction. The Bantag airship flew right through the middle, tracers streaking in from all points of the compass as a score or more gunners fired on it. The Bantag machine exploded and crashed into the dock, striking down dozens of Chin. Another ball snapped through the cabin past Hans’s head, fired from one of their own ships in all the confusion.

“This is gonna be tight!” Jack shouted, as they lined up on the airfield.

It wasn’t much, Hans realized, nothing more than a narrow swath of grass, the west side ending at the bluffs of the river, the other three sides surrounded by a jumbled sprawl of warehouses, slave encampments, and round wooden buildings that looked like oversize Bantag yurts.

The airship bobbed down, dropping below the rim of the bluff, Jack slammed in throttles, nosed up, cursing. They seemed to hang in midair, drifting in toward the bluff. Hans caught a glimpse of a red streamer fluttering in the wind at the end of the strip. They were coming in to land with the wind at their backs.

The ship barely climbed over the rim of the bluff and there was a sharp blow. They were down!

The ship bounced, rolled down the length of the airfield. Hans saw several dozen Bantag standing to one side, all of them motionless, completely surprised.

Jack let his ship roll out to the very end of the airstrip, clearing the way for the rest to come in, turning at the last second, slamming the throttles down.

“Everyone out! Get out, damn it!”

Hans unstrapped from his seat, stepped down, pulled open the bottom hatch, grabbed his carbine out from under his chair. It was a drop of a dozen feet, and he suddenly realized he couldn’t negotiate the ladder while holding on to his gun.

“Move, damn it. move!” Jack was crying.

Hans dropped his weapon through the hatch and slid down the rope ladder, holding on to either side, burning his hands. Hitting'the ground hard he clutched at his carbine, came up to his knees and levered it opened, pulled a cartridge from his pocket, and slammed it in. Some of the Bantag were still standing along the edge of the strip, watching. He stood up and came out from under the machine, moving along the wing, almost stepping into a propeller that was still spinning.

Ketswana was by his side, carbine raised. At a walk Hans started toward the Bantag, for a moment not really sure of what to do. They were mostly gray pelts and young. Another airship skidded past him, turning, spinning about as it ground to a halt. He looked down the airstrip. Airships were lining up, coming in, one after the other, one of them trailing smoke from a burning wing. It never made it, slamming into the bluff just below the airstrip, exploding. The ship behind it rose up, banking hard, nearly clipping the city wall with its wing, leveled out, then flew down the length of the field to come around again for another try.

He continued to walk toward the Bantag. They stood frozen like statues, most likely not even comprehending what was happening. Their inactivity told him volumes … the attack was a complete and total surprise, the arrival of the air fleet a complete shock. He was so close he could almost talk to them in a normal voice. He paused, and in spite of his hatred he couldn’t bring himself to raise his gun; it was too much like murder.

Suddenly they came to life. One of them fumbled at his belt, pulled out a pistol, and raised it. Others started to draw their weapons as well. Ketswana leveled his weapon, fired, pitching one of them over backwards. Shots erupted, Hans continued forward, a bullet snipping past his face. He took steady aim on the forehead of a gray pelt and dropped him clean. Levering open his carbine he reloaded, looked up, and saw the last of them running toward the wall.

Hans looked back over his shoulder. More men were swarming out from under the grounded airships. Eight were already down, two more came in, landing almost wingtip to wingtip, one of them coming straight at him. He sprinted to get out of the way, dropping to the ground as the ship veered, its starboard wing clipping the side of a shack, a propeller popping off, spinning across the field like a berserk toy of a giant child, tearing up great gouts of dirt, then disintegrating into splinters. The ship lurched to a stop, port-side wing pivoting over Hans’s head. The crew compartment underneath was already open, Chin soldiers spilling out, jabbering, cursing.

One of Ketswana’s men raised a bugle, sounding the rally call, and men came sprinting from all directions. An airship screamed past overhead, coming from the opposite direction of the landing traffic, its topside and forward gun firing upward. He caught a glimpse of a Bantag machine turning away, fire billowing from its hydrogen bag, pilot tumbling out of the forward cab, a silk umbrella opening. The Bantag pilot drifted toward the airstrip. Before Hans could say anything, guns were raised, riddling the warrior, who hung limp in his harness.

More men were falling in around Hans. Someone had his guidon. He had completely forgotten about bringing that along.

He scanned the wall facing the airstrip. There was a gate, but it was already closed. No, get lost in the warren of streets. It was the docks, get the docks, round up the Chin out there, then take the city from that side.

He looked back over at the airstrip. More ships were still coming in. What’s on the other side, those wooden yurtlike buildings? Barracks for the Bantag. If so we could lose our ships.

“Jack?”

“Right here.”

“Round up fifty men or so; I want a defensive perimeter on the other side of the field. Once the last airship lands and off-loads, start turning them around, get them back up in the air again to provide support.”

He started off without even waiting for a reply, racing down the length of the airfield. More ships were landing; one was on its side, burning fiercely, survivors hanging out of the side of the cargo compartment, dropping to the ground and crawling away.

A rattle of shots erupted from along the wall. He looked up, saw more Bantag up there, firing at the aerosteamers on the field.

He detailed off a dozen men, shouting for them to suppress the fire,and at the same instant an airship, banking sharply, winged overhead, its topside and nose gunners pouring a stream of Gatling fire down on the wall. Good, someone up there was thinking.

He pushed on, breathing hard, not used to the running, feeling his heart pounding, fluttering. He slowed for an instant urging Ketswana to push forward. There was a brief slap of pain in his chest that almost stole his breath away.

Damn, not now. He bent over, a Chin soldier slowing, coming up face filled with fear.

“Hans shot?”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

He stood back up, placing his hand on the young soldier’s arm to steady himself. The shiver of pain passed.

He started forward again, rounding the northwest corner of the wall. The shipyard and docks were far bigger than he had realized from the air. To his right, on the north side of the landing strip, were a row of boat sheds, bows of what looked to be seagoing ironclads sticking out. If any of those ships could get up steam and make it out into the river, they were finished. If we could capture them, though, he thought with a grin, Bullfinch could play hell with Bantag shipping. Catching the eye of a Chin sergeant leading a detachment, he pointed toward the boat sheds. The sergeant didn’t need to be told. He saluted, shouted for his men to follow, and ran off. Directly below his feet, less than a hundred feet away, was the burning wreckage of an aerosteamer sticking out of the river. He saw several survivors crawling up onto the muddy bank.

Down the length of the city were dozens of piers, anchored ships, several of them burning like torches. Ammunition from the burning barges in the middle of the river was still igniting, showering the dockside with flaming embers.

The river was low, nearly twenty feet below the level of the wall. The bluff that the city was built on extended about forty feet out from the wall, then sloped off sharply down to the docks twenty feet below the level of the bluff. A steeply sloping walkway, emerging from the main city gate a couple of hundred yards away, connected the upper and lower levels. Just south of the gate he noticed for the first time that a railroad track ran between the wall and the 178 William R. Forstchen edge of the bluff, boxcars and flatcars lining the track, all of them swarming with Chin. Atop several of the boxcars Bantag were already in position, crouching low, firing in his direction.

The wide pier along the riverbank was a scene of absolute chaos. Thousands of Chin swarmed back and forth, Bantag visible in the crush, towering above their slaves. Ketswana had deployed a heavy skirmish fine from the wall to the edge of the bluff. Hans came up to join him.

“We can’t get separated!” Hans shouted, trying to be heard above the cacophonous roar. “I’ll advance along the top of the bluff. Keep pace with me down on the docks. As you pass each ship anchored to the pier, sweep the Bantag off but don’t get tangled up in them. We advance to the gate, then try and gain a foothold in the town. Now move!”

He started forward at a slow walk, followed by several dozen men, moving along the lip of the bluff, looking up warily at the wall above. Ketswana, leading several dozen more, slid down the clay embankment, alighting on the pier. The seething chaos of Chin and Bantag was backing up in confusion at the sight of this blue-clad line sweeping around from the side of the city. Puffs of smoke ignited from Bantag on the pier, along the embankment, from ships, and atop the parked train.

“Aim carefully!” Hans shouted.

The skirmish line fired back, trying to avoid hitting the frightened slaves caught in the middle of the chaos. They pushed forward, passing the first dead, tragically too many of them human. A scathing volley erupted from a galley tied to the pier, several dozen Bantag lining the side of the ship. A man next to Hans dropped without uttering a sound, face a bloody mass.

Hans knelt, aimed carefully, fired. The battle stalled for several minutes as they struggled to suppress the Bantag defending the anchored ship, the men around Hans kneeling and lying down to return fire. He lost two more in quick succession. It was taking too long. Ketswana, leading the way, scrambled over the bow of the ship, disappearing in the confusion. Seconds later he reappeared, swinging a heavy Bantag scimitar two-handed, cutting down a black-clad warrior. Screaming a wild battle cry, holding the scimitar aloft, he jumped back onto the dock and charged forward.

The next ship downstream was in flames, bundled-up sails burning like torches. Hans pushed his line forward; they had to gain the gate. He saw a dark column coming out of that gate, Bantag infantry, and his heart sank.

And then it happened. The Bantag infantry, hemmed in on all sides by thousands of terrified slaves trying to get away from the fighting slashed out, clubbing, bayoneting their way through the press.

Caught between two fires, the Chin finally exploded. The terrified mob turned on their tormentors and within seconds the entire dockside from one end to the other had dissolved into a frightful, bitter riot, a revolution of tormented slaves turning on their implacable, fearsome masters.

Bantag were dragged down, disappearing under the swarm.

“Keep together!” Hans roared to his men. “Don’t get lost in this! Take the gate and hold there!”

He pushed the line forward, advancing slowly, keeping the pressure on, coldly and logically realizing that if he could push the Chin back, drive them together, panic would seize them and they’d turn on their foes. The ground was slick with blood, footing nearly impossible with the mass of bodies. His line finally broke in two between the embankment along the wall and the lower dock, Chin by the hundreds swarming through on the steep-sloping ground separating the two.

As he advanced he looked down on the ships to his right. More of them were burning, one of them flaring like a furnace, Bantag in flames plunging off the side. Damn, loaded with kerosene most likely, he thought.

Suddenly they were at the gates … which hung wide-open, bodies littering the entryway, most of them Chin, but there were a half dozen Bantag as well. The boxcars, which he feared might serve as a barrier to his advance, were in flames. He almost felt pity for a lone warrior running back and forth, obviously terrified, weapon gone, the surging mob of Chin below taunting and screaming at him. He suddenly crumpled and fell off the side, into the waiting arms of the mob. The fighting was exploding through the streets of the city, the venting of long-suppressed rage.

He turned, looking down at the docks. If it was possible to pity the Bantag, he did so at this moment. No longer were they the feared masters. Some still fought, several dozen of them forming a square, bayonets poised outward. Most were simply being swarmed under. He saw one rising up into the air, held aloft by a dozen Chin, kicking feebly while the mob tore at him, beating him with clubs, slashing with knives; one, holding a Bantag rifle, plunged the bayonet in the warrior’s side, pulled it out, then plunged it in again.

The flames continued to sweep along the docks, jumping from ship to ship, feeding hungrily on canvas sails, tarred ropes and decks, stores of kerosene, crates of ammunition.

He leaned against the walls of the city, resting for a moment to catch his breath.

“Hans, you all right?”

It was Ketswana, obviously delighted with the slaughter, carbine slung over his shoulder, sword still in his hands and dripping with blood and matted hair.

He nodded. It was too damned hot, made worse by the fires and the press of the mob.

A flyer streaked overhead, skimming down the river, forward gunner firing at a lone junk that had managed to push off from the dock. Water foamed around the ship, tracer rounds walking onto the deck, dropping the Bantag crew, sails sparking into flames, a wild hysterical cheer rising from the thousands of Chin along the riverfront.

Hans watched it soar past, the thought forming, wishing he was on it, above all of this madness, blood, and chaos where he could still his pounding heart and breathe cool air.

“Easy, so damned easy!” Ketswana exalted.

“Not yet, damn it,” Hans snapped, refocusing his attention.

“First. Detail off some of our Chin sergeants. Get the people down there on the docks organized and put out those fires. We want those ships and the supplies on board.”

Ketswana looked at him.

“This is no longer a raid; we’re going to hold this place.”

His companion broke into a grin. He pointed to the south end of the dock, where he had first spotted two land ironclads. The ship was still there, fire licking along its bow.

“I want those ironclads saved. We can use them. Next, detail off a company, get into the city, find out if there are any pockets of resistance. Try and find the human chieftain or ruler in there. I’m heading back to the airfield; we’ve got to organize the flyers, and find out if anything’s coming at us from outside the city.”

He broke away from the press around the gate, motioning for his guidon bearer and bugler to follow. Moving back along the wall, he was horrified by the extent of the slaughter left in their wake. He had seen far too many a battlefield, but there was nothing worse than the wake of a bloody murderous riot. The dead were not simply shot, they were torn apart, humans and Bantags locked in deadly embrace, hands about each other’s throats, clawing at each other’s eyes; blood, brains, looping entrails covered the embankment. Hundreds of Chin wandered about aimlessly, many of them seriously injured, but still capable of falling on a Bantag if they saw the slightest sign of life.

He reached the northwest corner of the wall. The airfield was again in view. Burning airships littered the ground, patches of dried grass burning as well, thick white smoke swirling up. He could hear a scattering of shots in the distance. He caught a glimpse of the ironclad boat sheds; the buildings were in flames. He moved slowly, winded from the battle, reaching the shed which must have been the headquarters for the airfield. Jack was out front shouting orders and threw his hands wide in exasperation at Hans’s approach.

“Damn all! Where the hell have you been?”

“Fighting a battle.”

“It’s your job to stay in one damn place and give orders. I’m not a ground commander, and that’s what you’ve got me doing here.”

Hans smiled at Jack’s exasperation.

“One of my men who just landed said he flew several miles to the northeast. Do you know there must be several regiments of Bantag camped up there, and they’re already forming up?”

“We had to expect that,” Hans said, forcing himself to conceal his surprise.

“We did our job here, Hans. Let’s get the hell out while we can.”

“How many airships left?”

Jack looked around at the packed confusion of the airfield.

“We lost nine coming in, at least I think that’s the count. Another half dozen got lost or turned back. We’re down to twenty-five, with just barely enough fuel to get home. Let’s off-load the weapons, hand them out to the Chin, so I can get our airships out of here.”

Hans shook his head.

“The air fleet stays here.”

“What?”

“Just what I said. Pick out one ship with a good crew that won’t get lost, and send them back to Tyre with word that we’re in. I’ll write out the message before they leave.” Jack drew closer.

“Hans, you know and I know that wasn’t the plan I agreed to fly. This was a raid to smash up Xi’an and, hopefully, trigger a revolt to tie Jurak down and cut his supplies. If you and your men were going to stay, I was to turn my fleet around and get back to Tyre. We’ve done that. I want my airships out of here now.”

Both ducked as a bullet whined past. Turning, Hans saw a couple of Bantag on the wall. A volley of shots erupted from the Chin soldiers standing around the two, driving the Bantag down.

“Damn all, Hans, a dozen Bantags with rifles could riddle the rest of my ships. I’ve got to get them up and out of here. This place is just too hot.”

“I know that. Get airborne, we still got a couple hours of daylight. Range east, up the track, get some other ships over that camp where their troops are forming and shoot it up. Let’s get some panic going out there. If you can, have someone land twenty or thirty miles up the track and tear up some telegraph lines. Once dusk settles come back in and land here. We should have this place secured by then.” Again another shot snapped past them. Cursing, Hans raised his carbine, took careful aim at a Bantag on the wall, and dropped him.

“If I do that, we won’t have enough fuel to g?t everyone back,” Jack cried even while Hans was shooting.

“I know that,” Hans said.

“Hans?”

The sergeant major stared at him, saying nothing.

“Damn it, Hans, you won. Jurak will choke up there at Capua. It’ll take him weeks to get any supplies after this. If you want to stay here, well that was part of the plan if you thought you could hold. I can be back from Tyre by tomorrow evening with two hundred more men and supplies.”

“No.” He shook his head violently.

Jack stared at him, and their eyes locked.

“I knew you would do this,” Jack finally whispered. “Damn you. I didn’t think we’d even make it this far. Hans, I’m still alive. Do you understand that? I thought I was dead, and I’m still alive. For God’s sake, all I want to do now is live out a few more days without being terrified.”

As he said the last words his voice started to break.

“And you knew as well as I did what we have to do out here.”

“You’re talking bloody suicide for all of us,” Jack cried.

He backed away from Hans, cursing violently.

“I’ll not order my men to die. God damn you, Hans, I’ve lost nearly half of them already.” He pointed toward the flaming wrecks littering the field.

“You’re not ordering them,” Hans whispered. “I'm ordering them.”

“Andrew said nothing of this to me,” Jack shouted.

Hans started to reach for the letter of authorization tucked into his breast pocket and hesitated. No, that wasn’t the way, he realized. He stepped up to Jack, putting his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. Jack tried to shake it off, but Hans grasped him tight, forcing him to look into his eyes again.

“Jack, I’m going to end this war the only way it can be ended,” he announced slowly. “We’re going straight into the heart of this bloody empire and tear it out. We’re not stopping with Xi’an. We’re going to liberate all the Chin.”

Jack said nothing.

“I can’t order men to near-certain death, Jack. But you know this is the only way left, and someone has to do it.”

“So, they found the weak spot.”

Jurak turned away from the map in the center of the yurt illuminated by oil lamps looted from a nearby Roum villa.

He motioned for his aging friend to have a seat. Taking down a wineskin, he tossed it over. Zartak grunted his thanks, uncorking the skin and draining half of it off in long, thirsty gulps.

“This Roum wine, far better than the brew the Chin make. About the only thing I like in this damnable country is the wine.”

Jurak said nothing, turning back to study the map and calculate his next move.

“There’s a wine from the south, a land out across the great encompassing ocean,” Zartak said. “Our cousins who live there make it themselves, delicious as nectar.”

“Make it themselves?” Jurak asked.

Zartak nodded, motioning for Jurak to sit down. The — expression on Jurak’s face made it obvious that he did not want to be diverted at the moment, but Zartak simply chuckled and patted the camp chair.

“You already know what needs to be done, and so do I. Now relax for a few minutes before you go off.”

Jurak grudgingly gave in and sat down, taking the wineskin.

“None of these humans down there,” Zartak continued. “Oh, a few slaves are traded as we ride past. Five hundred leagues or more south of Cartha. The two oceans here are mere lakes to the Great Sea.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“I’ve ridden nearly four circlings,” Zartak cackled. “I’ve seen everything of this world. Not like the stories you tell me of your world, my Qar Qarth.”

Jurak looked up, annoyed at the honorific title. Zartak smiled as if joking.

“Cities that glow at night, flying machines that are as fast as sound. Now you are my Qar Qarth, but I must confess I find it hard to believe, for nothing can outrace the voice of thunder. So many strange things you’ve seen Jurak.”

Zartak sighed wearily, shaking his head, running long, knurled fingers through his thinning mane.

“You’re different, too,” Jurak replied. “Not like the other clan chiefs.”

Zartak laughed.

“The Merki had a position within their Horde, the Shield Bearer, believed to be the spiritual advisor, the other half of the soul of the Qar Qarth. The fallen Tugars as well had an elder general. I fought him once, the last one that is. He was good, very good.”

“And you were thus to the last leader of the Bantag, before we, Ha’ark, the rest of my squad came here?” Jurak asked.

Zartak nodded.

“We’re not all as primitive as Ha’ark believed, or wanted to believe. We were here long before the first humans trod this world. I, for one, believe this was the home world, the birthplace of the first ancestors who grasped the stars and then fell from greatness. How else is it explained that you came from another world through the Portal of Light.”

Jurak nodded. The history of his own world taught that they were descendants of the first elders, godlike travelers who stepped through space and then became stranded upon his world. If so, they had to have come from somewhere. This world might very well indeed be the ancestor world of all of his race.

“The portals, I’ve wondered about that since we came here,” Jurak said, staring up through the open flaps of his yurt, the Great Wheel overhead.

“Gates, I think,” Zartak replied. “And may the gods and all the ancestors curse the day the gates into the world of the humans were created. The fools who built them, then left them unattended, were mad.”

“Yet it brought you the horse, even the great woolly beasts, and of course the cattle?” Jurak said cautiously.

Zartak looked at him carefully and leaned forward. He picked the wineskin up, realized it was empty, and tossed it aside.

Jurak reached under a table and pulled out another sack, handing it over. The old warrior nodded his thanks.

“The air up in this region is chilled at night; this will warm my bones and help me to sleep.”

He smacked his lips, sighing as he recorked the skin, which was now half-empty. Picking up the folding stool he had been sitting on, he moved it over to the open doorway of the yurt, motioning for Jurak to join him. They sat in silence for several minutes, gazing out at the steppes and the Great Wheel rising in the eastern heavens.

“The Endless Ride,” Zartak whispered, gaze fixed on the heavens.

“Oh how glorious it was in my youth. You came long after these troubles had started, and all was changing. I think you would have liked it then, even though you are civilized.”

Jurak looked over and saw that Zartak was smiling slyly.

“At dawn to see the vast multitude arise, facing to the east, chanting our greetings to the morning sky. The yurts, a hundred thousand of them, and that of the great Qar Qarth drawn by a hundred oxen with room for a hundred within. Our encampments blanketed the steppe for as far as the eye could see.

“And then we would ride, the wind in our hair, the thunder of a million hooves causing the earth to shake. Hunters sweeping far forward, bringing in game, the great wool-clad giants with tusks that could feed a thousand for a day.”

He smiled, taking another drink.

“I remember my first hunting eagle. I named him Bakgar after the God of the Westerly Wind. His cry would reach to the heavens. We’d range far ahead, he and I. Have you ever truly been alone on the steppes, my son?”

Jurak shook his head, inwardly pleased that the wine had loosened the old one’s tongue, causing him to drop the deference, the titles, to call him son. He realized that Zartak was not even aware of the slip.

“To be truly alone, the bowl of the blue heavens overhead, the great green sea beneath you, spring grass as high as your stirrups. When the god Bakgar sighed, the green sea shifted, rocking, the wind taking form as it touched the land. And the air. the smell, you know you were breathing the sweet breath of heaven.

“And I’d raise my wrist, setting my own Bakgar loose, and with a great cry he’d circle upward, bright golden feathers rippling. Alone, so truly alone, and it was worth everything to be alive and to know that, to know the joy of a fleet horse, an eagle on your wrist, and the wind in your hair.”

He lowered his head for a moment, lost in his dreams.

“And you never knew the joy only the young can feel when they ride to war for the first time. Our umens would fill that green sea, ten thousand riding as one, turning as one, pennants snapping overhead, the great nargas sounding the charge.

“My first charge, ah there was a moment. It was the year before I completed my first circling, not far from here in the land of the Nippon. We and the Merki. When we loosed our shafts ten thousand arrows blotted out the sun, the dark shadow of them racing like a storm cloud.”

He shook his head and sighed.

“Madness really. But we fought for different things then. The world was big enough for all of us to ride, to hunt, to have pasture. It was simply to match steel against steel and prove that we were still worthy of the blood of our ancestors and unafraid. It was not to the final death, to the slaughter of the young, the old, the bearers of young. No, just steel against steel. Not like this.” And he vaguely waved back toward the west and the front lines.

“If you bested a champion, you took his faka, his glory, but would suffer him to live, even to feast him before sending him back to his yurt. That was as war should be.”

He took another drink of wine.

“But always there were the humans.”

“You don’t call them cattle anymore,” Jurak said.

Zartak laughed sadly.

“You know I once had a pet. It was when I was a child, a female. In those days, among those of the blood of the royal lines it was common to give to a youth a human pet to serve as companion, a teacher of their languages, a slave to do the menial tasks.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Go on.”

“Some, as they came to their first passions of youth, would become besotted by such a cattle female.”

Jurak could not hide his disgust at the mere thought of it. It was a subject not spoken of, a dark infamy only whispered of, and punished brutally.

“No, not in that sense did I care for her,” Zartak added, not even aware of his friend’s reaction.

“Not in that sense?” Jurak asked cautiously.

“Her name was Helena. She was of the tribe called the Greek Byzantens, a thousand or more leagues to the west. But I did love her.”

Zartak shifted uncomfortably.

“I think she genuinely cared for me, almost like a mother to a child. She was a gentle creature. I remember when I was not more than five years or so I was stricken with a fever that all but killed me. She sat by me day and night for nearly the passing of an entire moon.”

“What of your mother?”

“I never knew her. She died giving me life. My father never took another to his bed and died mourning her. Thus there was only Helena to tend to me.

“She would tell me stories of her people, of human kings and princes of their old world, of a poet called Homer. She knew much of his great ballad by heart.”

And for a moment Zartak drifted, speaking in an unknown tongue of House Atreides and black-hulled ships. The ancient song died away, and he took another drink.

“You know the ritual of the naming day, the day a warrior is accepted into his unit of ten and finally takes the name he will carry for the rest of his life?”

Jurak nodded, having seen it often enough since coming to this world.

“One is expected to make a sacrifice, usually a horse”- he paused for a moment-“but also a cattle. My cousins had taunted me that I was too attached to my cattle pet. My father was dead by then, so it was my eldest uncle who on that morning decreed that Helena was to be the sacrifice.”

He stopped again, finishing the rest of the wine sack. With a low grunt he threw it out of the yurt, reached back under the table without bothering to ask, drew out another sack and opened it.

“Strange how this brew loosens the tongue to such foolishness.”

“Go on,” Jurak said softly. “Tell me.”

“So 1 went to my yurt. She had laid out my warrior’s garb, my first shirt of chain mail, the scimitar and bow of my father. I knew she was proud of me, even though I was of the Horde and she was merely a cattle. And she was wearing a plain white robe, as white as a morning cloud, the robe of a cattle sacrifice. She already knew.

“I could not speak. She'smiled and said that today she would join her parents. We had slaughtered them years before, and yet she loved me. She went unafraid. I was the one who was afraid, as we walked to the circle where my family awaited.

“We entered the circle. She hesitated at the sight of the stake she was supposed to be tied to. My uncle, a cruel one he was, had wood piled about it. He wanted the old forms to be observed, so she was to be burned alive and then devoured.”

Zartak hesitated and looked away.

“She turned and looked at me and whispered in her language. ‘If you loved me as I loved you, do it now. Please don’t let me burn.’”

He stopped again.

Jurak waited in silence.

“‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters.’”

“What?”

“The last words she said,” Zartak whispered. “It was a prayer of her people. She taught me to say it. She said her god taught it to her people, and my gods would hear it, too. When I was a cub we would say it together every night.

“She began that prayer. I stepped behind her so she could not see the blade.”

He paused again.

“No. That’s a lie. Because I could not bear to look into her eyes. I killed her with a single blow before she finished the prayer. I did that so it would catch her unaware and those were her last words.

“And so the feast of my naming day began. My cousins fell upon her body. I had lost face for my weakness, killing her thus, and I was taunted for years after that. I didn’t care. I knew what was in my heart even if they did not.”

Zartak’s voice broke, and Jurak was unable to contain his surprise. Such a display of emotion before one not of your own blood was all but unknown.

After several minutes Zartak regained his composure.

“The drunken ramblings of a decrepit warrior,” Zartak announced self-consciously.

“No, not at all.”

“I knew then they had souls. That they were as good as us. Yes, I joined in the moon feasts and felt the passion of the slaughter when after a long and hungry ride we fell upon a great city of theirs and one out of ten were culled out to feed us. I remember three circlings back when one of the cities on the far side of this world rebelled. It was somewhat the same as here; some humans had come through a portal in a ship. They had weapons of powder, men with black beards, blue uniforms, and a great ship flying a flag of red and blue and white. They did not have the skill of these Yankees, though, in the making of machines. But they did field a great army of humans armed with pikes and bows, following those flags and golden eagles as standards. We slaughtered all of them, millions, the feasting lasted for weeks before we rode on, and I did love it.

“Yet always I was haunted by her.”

“Your love of her?” Jurak asked, uncomfortable associating the word love with a human.

“No. That was inside here.” He pointed to his stomach, the liver, where all feelings rested.

“No. It was the knowledge of what they truly are. When the first humans came here our ancestors slaughtered them out of hand.”

He hesitated for a moment. “And that was good.”

“Why?”'

“Our ancestors had reverted to barbarism, becoming little better than the cattle they slaughtered. And then came the horse and we-bred it to our size and the tribes started the Great Ride about the world. If only it had stayed thus, I would say that was good, too. But somewhere back then our ancestors decided not to slaughter all the humans, but to spread them out about the world instead. To place one of each of their tribes as a chief or king. Then, when we circled the world and returned in twenty years, there would be more of them.

“We thought ourselves so wise, for we reasoned, let the humans do the labor. Let them raise food for us, let them fashion saddles, lay down vineyards, make the boats, rafts, and bridges so that we might cross the great rivers in our path. Let the humans do all things and in addition offer up their flesh as food.

“We thought that would control their numbers, to harvest them as one harvests the great tusked beasts or the vast herds of the hump-backed bisons. So in that first circling of long ago there might be a village of a hundred humans by a river. Twenty years later two hundred and then by my time a city of a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand.

“They are fertile, and we are not. Perhaps our blood is old, and theirs is young. I don’t know. But our numbers never seemed to increase; theirs did. Some in their wisdom urged that we harvest half, and at times we did, but then we would ride on and upon our return a generation later there’d be yet more.

“They spilled out of the Portals of Light. Oh, never many, perhaps in an entire ride we’d discover one new tribe. Sometimes they were but a few dozen, more often a ship or two. I suspect that upon their world the old portals are lost beneath several different seas. We’d scatter them about or settle them in one place, tell them to labor, and move on. Of late, though, in the last ten or so circlings we should have realized that something was happening on their world that was not happening here.”

“What?”

“Their cunning, their skill with machines. That ship I told you of. I spoke once with the elder warrior of the Tugars who told me of a similar ship, filled with men wearing jackets of polished steel. The Tugars slaughtered them, of course, but we should have realized the threat and acted before it was too late. The Tugar elder also told me that near here there was a similar ship whose crew actually escaped and sailed south toward the ocean that circles the southern half of this world.

“We should have realized then that we had to somehow change the balance between us.”

“And do what?”

“Either come to terms with them or slaughter them all.”

“Terms? How?”

“I know. I think it is impossible now. My cousins, all my people, not one in a thousand do I think contemplated who these humans truly were. They were cattle, they were food, they were slaves. None heard the beauty of their languages, their poetry, their songs.” Again his words lapsed into the ancient human tongue, speaking of the numbering of ships and the names of captains dead across three thousand years and the infinity of the universe.

“It was far more, though. We have become”-he hesitated for a moment and then spat out the word-“parasites upon the flesh and minds of the humans.”

Jurak stirred uncomfortably, started to voice an objection but Zartak waved his hand, motioning him to silence.

“Think of it. Every weapon we carry, the clothing we wear, the food we eat, all of the new tools of war, none of it has been shaped by our hands. We do nothing but exist; it is they who have fashioned the world.

“It has gone to the very soul.” Zartak sighed. “The division between us now. Imagine if the world was reversed, imagine if it was the humans who rode and who feasted upon our blood, who cracked our bones open to draw out the very marrow while we were still alive.”

Jurak shivered at the thought. Impossible. The primal dread of being consumed, eaten alive, the fear that was even more dreadful than the fear of death filled him with darkness.

“No, it could never be. Could it?” Jurak laughed coldly. “That gulf can never be crossed now,” Zartak continued. “Too much blood has been drawn for them ever to forgive us. For that matter our own people cannot imagine it any other way as well. Oh, I have whispered at times and been rebuffed when I suggested such thoughts when I was young. My cousins taunted me, accused me of an obscene love for my dead pet, so I learned to be silent. I learned to hide such thoughts and thus did I rise through command of ten, to a hundred, to a thousand, to ten thousand, to eldest of the clan of the white horse. Now as an ancient one though I find I am as free as a youth to speak again.”

“And that is why I value you,” Jurak replied. He hesitated, looking at the Great Wheel, visible outside the open flaps of the yurt, wondering which out of all the millions of stars was his home world. He felt a cold shiver, a loneliness, and infinite sadness.

“So you see no chance then of a change?” he finally whispered.

“Go outside this yurt and shout for the west wind to go away.”

Zartak sighed, then chuckled softly, the laughter sad, lonely.

“No, we are both trapped in this war. The Yankees freed these humans and with that freedom the inner dread, the paralyzing fear of being eaten alive was replaced with a blind all-consuming rage. You saw with your own eyes what they can now do, even with their bare hands if they have the chance.”

Jurak nodded, remembering the carnage of Roum, and along the Ebro, where the slaves had rebelled and escaped, literally tearing warriors limb from limb in their frenzy.

“And now what?”

Zartak looked up at him and smiled.

“I’ll be gone before it is decided. Perhaps the last of you will come early to join me above, where again there will be the Endless Ride. I fear, son, that either you must kill all of them or they will kill all of us. It is that simple.”

“Even though you loved one of them?”

Zartak flinched.

“A weakness of youth,” he fumbled.

“No. Perhaps an insight?”

Zartak sadly shook his head.

“Don’t let it weaken you. This is not a time for weakness. Do you honestly think that after all we have done to them there could ever be peace, a place in this world for us and a place for them?”

Jurak found that he was again wrestling with that thought. If this campaign was lost, as he feared more than once it would be, then what?

“You’re wondering what will happen if we lose this war,” Zartak said. “This attack at Xi’an caught you completely off guard.”

“Yes.”

“It surprised me, too. I did not understand these flying machines. I did not ever think they could be used to transport hundreds of warriors across hundreds of leagues to fall upon our center of supply. Tell me, were such things done on your world?”

Jurak sensed the slightest tone of rebuke in Zartak’s question.

“Yes! But the airships there could carry a hundred in their bellies. And there would be hundreds of such ships in the sky at once, warriors leaping from them, floating to the ground under the umbrellas made of silk.”

“Such a sight it must have been.”

Jurak nodded.

“The ships here, so primitive in comparison, I never considered that they would risk all of them. There cannot be more than three hundred of them in this attack.”

“Joined by how many tens of thousands of Chin?”

Jurak was silent. Damnation.

“If you do not suppress this rebellion within the next day, two days at most, all is lost. You will have to flee east or south, south across the seas, for they will come after you.”

“From all that I’ve heard of Keane, I wonder if he would if we did leave.”

Zartak grunted.

“I wonder about him as well. I do have the sense you know. And of Keane I sense much. But consider the rest of the world. Let word come to all the other humans of this world that we have been beaten, and they will rise up, remembering their dead across all these thousands of years. There is no compromise with that I fear.”

Jurak slowly nodded in agreement.

“I know. Perhaps we are alike in that, for I know if it was as you said, if it was they who rode and we who bowed, I would die to kill but one.”

“See what we’ve created here?” Zartak laughed sadly. “I know.”

“And now?”

“They found the weak link. They’ve used their air machines to fly several hundred soldiers to Xi’an. The city is in chaos, rebellion, the last telegram before the line was cut said hundreds are being slaughtered, including females and cubs.”

Zartak nodded.

“A brilliant move,” Jurak whispered. “Damn all. I tried to consider every potential, every move and countermove. I knew if we went to the defensive and waited, we could build our forces up, train our troops, and even outproduce the Yankees. I knew if we held most of the territory of the Roum we could perhaps even drive a political wedge between the two states of their Republic, maybe even get them to mistrust and turn on each other.”

“The humans you sent in secret to kill their president and Keane, a masterful move,” Zartak said.

Even now that might be working, Jurak thought. A few additional refugees slipped across the line, trained and conditioned, knowing that if they did not come back within three moon feasts their entire families would die in the next one.

“Yet never did I see this coming.”

“Your dream of last night,” Zartak said, “it was a portent. You have the power, you know.”

If I have the power, he wondered, then why do all the paths ahead now seem equally dark.

“You told me that you have a weapon that can burn entire cities in one blinding flash. Could you make one now? That would end this.”

Jurak was surprised at the casual mention of such a fearsome weapon.

“No, that is the work of thousands, tens of thousands,” Jurak replied, his voice distant.

To get these primitives to the point where they could make a magnetic separator, let alone a breeder reactor, maybe in a thousand years perhaps. As for the science? I can figure out how to make explosives, even a lathe to turn out guns, but that?

And even if I did, he thought, would I unleash such a horror on this world?

“The Yankees will make one someday,” Zartak announced.

That thought had never crossed his mind. Yes, they most likely would. They were makers of machines, and machines begot more machines.

“And this attack from Tyre?” Zartak asked, suddenly shifting the conversation back to more immediate concerns.

“It might be a diversion, but if they gain the western shore of the Great Sea, create a base, combine that with ships captured from Xi’an, we are finished on this front. That was masterful as well. Letting us see it coming. The ironclads we sent from Xi’an, if they were there now, tonight, we would crush the rebellion.”

“But the new railroad coming up from Nippon and connecting across the north of the Great Sea is finished. We won’t need the Sea.”

Jurak shook his head. Here it was obvious that Zartak was thinking only as a warrior who fought on land and had never before faced a naval force.

“We must hold the Sea. If they take the rail line we were building toward Tyre and combine that with holding Xi’an, they can move reinforcements up. I suspect that is why they are moving one of their corps overland along with the ironclads. If they’ve captured ships at Xi’an, they could have that equipment in Camagan within three days. Or they could strike us from behind, or even range northward, landing'troops to cut the new rail line along the northern shore. We have to crush the rebellion in Xi’an and at the same time beat back this attacking force.”

Zartak slowly nodded in agreement.

“Or send it straight into the heart of the Chin realm, toward Huan.”

Jurak sighed, looking back at the map in the middle of the yurt.

“What will they do next?” Jurak whispered, more to himself than his companion.

Zartak stood up and looked at the map.

“I think the one they call Hans is leading this,” Zartak said.

“Why do you say that?”

He smiled. “Call it that sense we believe in.”

Hans. The thought chilled Jurak as he stared at the map. “If it is Hans, what do you think he’ll do next?” Jurak finally asked, looking back at his old friend.

Zartak walked up to the map and jabbed at it with a bony finger.

“He’ll go here. Straight for the heart. Why they did not do that in their first strike is beyond me.”

“Most likely their flying machines could not range that far and carry enough men.”

“If that is so, then by flying out of Xi’an such a move would now be possible. He will do this come first light tomorrow. What you saw at Roum, what is happening today at Xi’an. Tomorrow it will erupt there.”

Jurak felt a cold chill.

“We still have the railroad back to Nippon and from there back into the land of the Chin,” Zartak said, tracing the route out on the map. “The humans most likely don’t even know we completed that. Supplies can be shifted that way. Order every train on that line to reverse itself, to go back. There are two umens in Nippon with modern arms; send them down at once.”

Jurak worked out the mental calculations, the number of trains that were moving those two umens up to the front. “They could be back in Huan by tomorrow night.”

“Alert the commander of the city. Have him round up the human leaders. Have him make it clear that if the Yankees land and the local population does not join in the rebellion, they will all be spared. If they do join, all will die.”

Jurak was surprised by the forcefulness of his voice. He nodded in agreement.

“I’m going back there. I wanted to check with you first, but just in case I already ordered the track to be cleared and a train prepared.”

The pieces seemed to be falling into place. He looked at his desk piled high with the messages of the day, and his thoughts focused on one in particular.

“Did you know that Tamuka rode into Huan this morning?” Jurak asked.

Zartak stiffened.

“The usurper. The old Qar Qarth of the Merki?”

“Yes.”

“He is a mad beast. Why did he go there?”

“I had a report that the Merki who were following him finally rebelled and drove him out. I assumed he had been killed or taken the honorable path and fallen upon his sword.”

“You should have told me of this, my friend. Tamuka has not the courage to rid the world of his presence.”

“When I heard that he was seen this morning I assumed he was riding east, perhaps even to join the Tugars in the empty lands to the east.”

“Or to make problems for you. That is the more likely path.”

“And he has wandered straight to where the fight will be tomorrow,” Jurak replied. “Are the gods of our fate spinning a thread here?”

“I hope not. Order the commander there to seize him, kill him if need be.”

Jurak nodded. He heard a train whistle sounding from the rail yard. Seconds later there was a clatter of hooves, his escort guards coming to tell him that the track ahead was clear and it was time to leave.

“I’d best be leaving, old friend.”

“By train, it will take days.”

“Only till dawn. I’ve ordered a flyer to be waiting for me 150 leagues east of here. The train will reach there by dawn, and I’ll fly the rest of the way.”

Zartak chuckled.

“Better you than me. The only time I intend to fly is when my ancestors summon me home.”

He scratched his balding mane.

“Soon enough it will be, but not too soon. I wish to see how this all will end.”

“I want you to command here, to press an attack.”

“We’re not ready.”

“Get ready, and press it. I would prefer this morning if possible.”

Zartak shook his head.

“The ironclads we diverted to Carnagan. We’ll need those. You’ll remember they started landing this afternoon.”

Jurak sighed.

“I don’t have time now for the details. Have the messages I’ve left on my desk sent. Send instructions to Huan as we discussed and one to Carnagan that they must press the attack there tomorrow and finish it. At least we can smash that army, then we launch the attack here. Win or lose at Huan, we smash their armies before they realize what they’ve accomplished and we can still win in spite of this setback.”

Zartak formally bowed, and again the old roles were assumed.

“My Qar Qarth. The machine of steam awaits you.” It was one of his guards, waiting respectfully outside the yurt. “So you see no alternatives other than this,” Jurak asked, dropping his voice, gaze locked on Zartak. “A war of total annihilation of one or the other.”

“For the sake of an old friend of my youth, I wish I could,” Zartak whispered. “No. And I think she knew that, too. We and they are bound together in this world, and only one shall emerge triumphant.”

“Then let it be us,” Jurak said coldly.