Return To Kaldak

Chapter 7

Blade spent the rest of the night in an informal sort of protective custody. Sparra took command of Terbo's squad and led it off into the darkness while Terbo himself mounted guard over both Blade and the body-strewn rubble.

That worried Blade. If he was in danger of death from Chyatho's friends, what about Sparra? He probably couldn't do anything to help her tonight, but it was always better to know for sure things like this.

«You and she did get together, didn't you?» was Terbo's reply. «And don't lie.»

«We did,» said Blade.

«I thought so, That phrase of Sparra's-'nothing which is yours'-I've heard it before. So has Chyatho. This must have been one too many times.»

«Whose side are you on?»

«The side of not getting any more good fighters or live loins killed tonight,» said Terbo. «That's why I'm protecting you. It's also why I will hunt down any man who touches Sparra for this night's work if the Monitor doesn't do it first.»

«Are you-claiming Sparra-now that Chyatho is dead?» As long as he was pretending to recover his wits, he could ask what would otherwise have been stupid questions.

«I am not,» said Terbo. «You see, I am dead-Joined. I can be a Protector to the children other men father, but never put one into a woman myself. Sparra has borne Chyatho a son, and is young enough to bear more to another man with live loins. It would go hard with both of us if I claimed her. Oh, I have bedded her at times when both of us were in need. But I would not claim her. I advise you not to, either, at least until you have all your wits back. She will say ten words to your one, otherwise.»

Blade laughed. «So I suspected.»

After that they talked freely. Terbo had been a soldier for more than twenty of his forty years. In fact, he'd fled as a boy from a village overrun by the Doimari advancing to the great battle where the Sky Master Blade defeated them. With both parents dead he was adopted by a Kaldakan family, then went into the army as soon as he was old enough for them to take him. Since then, he'd fought in most of Kaldak's major battles and a good many of the minor ones, in several different units of Kaldak's army.

«Not the City Regiment, though. Never those high-nosed types. They don't take village boys,» he added. He sounded more resigned than bitter.

«The City Regiment?» Blade recalled hearing Sparra mention it, after they heard the steamboat whistle and saw the rocket.

«We call them the Sitting Regiment, out here,» said Terbo.

Most of Kaldak's fighters were local-defense troops, under local control and armed with whatever came to hand. In fact, some of the cities and districts which joined Kaldak did so on the condition that they maintain their own armed forces. Monitor Bekror's troops were one of those almost feudal private armies.

Then there were the five battalions of the City Regiment, crack troops armed with the best Oltec and Newtec. They rode in hovercraft, flew in balloons, dropped by parachute, and controlled robotic Fighting Machines. They were the strategic reserve, held back most of the time and thrown in only when a situation got beyond what the local troops could handle.

Then they fought well. Even Terbo would admit as much. They were brave and could use their weapons with devastating skill. What Terbo and men like him resented was the feeling that they were used as bait. «We suck 'em in, anyone the High Commander wants flattened. We take all the pounding. Then the Sitters come charging out, do all the damage, and get all the glory.»

The quarrel between elite troops and the ordinary infantryman went back as far as war itself, Blade knew. He remembered how the war effort of Doimar was nearly wrecked from the start by the quarrel between the regular soldiers and the scientists who controlled the Fighting Machines. He wondered what happened in Doimar after the battle, when the Seekers withdrew the Fighting Machines and left the infantrymen to fight or die. It couldn't have done any fatal damage, or Doimar wouldn't still be a menace.

It didn't help that between battles the City Regiment was close to civilization and all its comforts. «When they're not training, they'll be sitting on a cushion with a girl on their laps and good liquor in their cups. When we're not training, we're building bridges and roads, clearing rubble, harvesting crops, things like that.»

Blade nodded sympathetically. The conversation died away as they waited for dawn.

Dawn brought a squad of the City Regiment, men and women in blue uniforms, all armed with laser rifles and led by a tall woman with hard yellow eyes which didn't miss much. They took over Blade's position and chased him and Terbo out almost as if they'd been Tribesmen. Blade was happy to go. The smell of death was getting too thick, and he was hungry.

Blade learned about the battle from listening to the talk in the barracks over breakfast. The Tribesmen had surprised the estate because nobody was expecting them. An even bigger surprise was their Doimari weaponry, both Newtec and Oltec.

However, the City Regiment must have somehow known about the attack in advance. Their Fourth Battalion had been ready on riverboats an hour's steaming upstream. As soon as they got word of the attack, they came in. Thanks to the determined resistance by the people on the estate, the Tribesmen were still concentrated around it when the Fourth arrived. Less than half the Tribesmen got away, and those who had were being chased.

It was «a famous victory.» Or at least it would be, when the damage was repaired, the dead were buried and forgotten, and everybody stopped worrying about the Doimari assistance to the Tribesmen. Everyone wondered if the rival city was starting the war again in earnest.

Everyone also seemed to know that Blade had his memory back, and that he'd done heroic work against the Tribesmen. Many also seemed to know about Chyatho's death. Blade got a mixture of congratulations which he accepted and black looks he did his best to ignore.

After breakfast, a messenger summoned him to the Monitor's hall. Bekror was red-eyed with fatigue and grief. He'd been up all night, in the thick of the fighting for most of it. One of his sons was dead, and one of his daughters had miscarried as a result of the attack.

However, his voice was brisk and steady as he spoke to Blade. «You did the work of seven men last night, Voros,» he began. «You will be rewarded for it, whatever you decide.»

«I-decide?» said Blade. He wasn't entirely pretending to be confused.

«Yes. You got your memory back last night, didn't you?»

«Some of it, sir.»

«Do you remember where you came from?»

«No. I don't think it was one of the big cities, but that's all I can even guess.»

«So I heard. If you had come from around here and had kin who could avenge you, you could stay and be well protected. The Laws know I would gladly keep you around. Or you could return home. But you have no home, and it's just not safe for you to stay here.»

«It's Chyatho's death, isn't it?»

«Terbo has been talking, hasn't he?»

«Yes.»

The Monitor shrugged. «I don't blame him for talking or you for listening. The only way you could have shut him up was by strangling him, and he probably told you the truth anyway. Beer?» He held up a pitcher.

Blade shook his head. Although he'd eaten a large breakfast, he still felt light-headed with fatigue.

The Monitor poured himself a cup and drank, then went on. «I keep to the Old Law, myself. A man and a woman can get together as they wish, as long as they have her mate's or father's consent. I try to make everyone who serves me keep to the Old Law, too.

«But years pass and things change. Now there are men who follow the New Law, which says a woman must be faithful to the man who gives her a child. Or says he gave her children,» he added, swallowing more beer. «The New Law is a gift to any liar who wants to make his woman a slave. I do not understand why any man could wish children from a woman who would bow like that, but then I grew up under the Old Law. I was the father of three children by three different women before the Sky Master Blade came.» Another swallow.

«Chyatho led those men of my lands who wanted the New Law followed here. He had a good many friends, or at least people ready to avenge him. I cannot protect you forever from all of them, particularly not if you're going to be in any more fighting. In battle, it's easy to make murder look like an accident or the enemy's work.»

Bekror drained the cup and refilled it. «However, there's a way for you to leave here with honor and find safety. The Commander of the Fourth Battalion of the City Regiment has asked if you would like to volunteer for the Regiment. Most of the time, I'd secede from Kaldak before I let a man as good as you go to the Sitters. That's how they keep up their strength-sucking all the best blood away from where it's really needed. But you're a special case. What do you say, Voros?»

Seeing Blade hesitate, the Monitor added, «I don't know what you think of the Sitters, but they do know how to fight. The Fourth particularly. You may remember that they're called Kareena's Own.»

Blade managed to suppress a violent start into a small one. «Kareena?»

«Peython's daughter, who was consort to the Sky Master Blade. You know the name?»

«It seems-familiar.»

«You probably had a girl named after the original one. The Laws know there were enough of them, for a couple of years after she was killed.»

«Killed?»

«You don't remember the story? Well, Kareena was leading the Fourth when they got into a Doimari ambush. She took the rear guard and held off the Doimari long enough for most of her people to get away. She was hurt and told the rear guard to leave her, but one of them stayed with her. She played dead, but hid a grenade under her body. When the Doimari came to get her, she pulled the pin and blew up about a dozen of them along with herself.»

«That sounds like-«

The Monitor interrupted before Blade could say anything too revealing. «I don't wonder if it sounds familiar. If your girl was named after Kareena, she must have sucked in the story with her mother's milk.» He swallowed more beer. «Why don't you take a walk and think it over? Don't go too far, though. I don't think Chyatho's friends would try anything with the Fourth all over the place, but why take chances?»

Why indeed? thought Blade, as he walked along the riverbank an hour later. Overhead the sky was gray, matching Blade's mood.

Which was taking unnecessary chances, going or staying? If he stayed, he would have an honorable place in Bekror's service. He might even be able to find some subtle way of hunting for Cheeky.

However, Cheeky was probably dead or hopelessly lost. The search could be a waste of time. Or the Tribesmen might attack again and he could never make it at all. Meanwhile, he would have to guard his back from Chyatho's friends day and night.

If he went to join the Fourth Battalion, he would have another kind of honorable place, in the crack troops of Kaldak. He should be safe from Chyatho's friends. He would not be able to search for Cheeky, but he would certainly learn a lot more about what was going on in this Dimension.

He would have to go to Kaldak, then, even though he might wind up facing someone who'd known the Sky Master Blade. And he would be serving in «Kareena's Own,» where he'd face reminders of her every time he turned around. He wondered if she'd had his child safely. That would be a little too much to ask outright here, but in the ranks of the Fourth Battalion he might learn without having to ask.

It helped him feel better to know that she'd died like a soldier, and been spared another ordeal as a Doimari prisoner. She could never have survived it, not after her first time in their hands.

A platoon of soldiers from the Fourth marched past. Blade noticed that their blue uniforms were clean but well worn. These weren't parade-ground soldiers. Their weapons were also shining and bright, and some of the men wore beards. All of them marched as if they not only knew they were the best but wanted the whole world to know it.

There could be worse ways to spend a trip to Dimension X than serving in the ranks of a good fighting outfit. If he could keep his beard, he might not even have to worry about being recognized in Kaldak.

In his mind Blade said good-bye to Cheeky, and after a moment another good-bye to Kareena. Then he started up the bank, toward Bekror's gate.