The Lotus Eaters

Anno Condita 472 Pashtia, Terra Nova

It was under three hundred miles from the capital to the land of the tribe of Alena. That was, however, as the crow flew and no crow flew over the Indicus Koh mountains, not unless it carried its own air with it. This high, even the tranzitrees, those green-on-the-outside, red-on-the inside, botanical stores of poison to intelligent life, grew stunted and withered.

And it was cold, so cold. Atop his shaggy mountain pony, so different and so much less comfortable than his accustomed thoroughbreds, Hamilcar Carrera tried like the man he was not yet quite to control his shivering. His breath, and that of the pony, came out in a frozen pine tree in front of his face.

"Iskandr," said Alena, riding beside the boy on his left just as her husband, David Cano, rode to the right. "Iskandr, this is as bad as it gets. Soon we will begin the descent downward."

"I'mmm . . . alllll . . . rrright," the boy ground out. "It's just so . . . fu . . . so cold."

Cano smiled. He knew where the boy had picked up his command of vernacular. Every legionary with whom he'd come in contact had been an instructor. And he'd lived among the legions all his life.

Cano rode to the boy's right because it was his military duty to shield the little body from any bullet that might come. For his wife, Alena, that duty was religious. As far as Alena was concerned, Hamilcar—Iskandr, to her—was the reincarnation of Alexander, Avatar of God, and the man, once grown to manhood, who would lead her tribe to glory again. There was not a man, woman, boy, or girl of Alena's tribe who would have hesitated a nanosecond to lay down his or her life for their Iskandr. And most had not yet even laid eyes on the boy.

No matter, faith saw with the heart, not the eyes, listened with the heart, not with the ears.

Three hundred miles was the distance. On the straight and level, on good, full sized, horses, it might have taken twelve or fourteen days. Under the circumstances—up, down, winding, bad or no trails, rocks barring what pathways there were, and the need to forage—it had already been six weeks.

They could have flown from the capital to Alena's people. Certainly Carrera had enough markers to call in to arrange for that with the Pashtian Air Force. But, as he'd said, "I don't want anyone to know, to even have a hint, where the boy is, that I could not trust with his life."

And so they rode the distance, spread out in a serrated column with a score of point men forward, backed up by twice that a mile or so behind, a rear guard similarly if inversely composed, and the great mass, one hundred and forty odd warriors and five times that in dependents, in the middle.

* * *

The shots that came from ahead weren't a big surprise. No one rode the mountains of Pashtia without expecting to be attacked sometime, somewhere along the route.

On the other hand, the sheer volume of fire; that was a surprise. Hamilcar had spent his short life surrounded by arms. He listened to the firing for a few moments, filtering out the much faster rate of his guards' F- and M-26s. He judged, "Five machine guns, maybe a hundred, hundred and twenty, rifles."

Cano looked closely at the boy and nodded. "Yes, about that."

Hamilcar looked questioningly at Alena. She was said to be a witch, after all, though in fact she was probably just a highly observant and extremely intelligent woman. She closed her eyes and recalled the maps she studied nightly.

"There may be three times that many," she announced. "Probably no heavy weapons, not here, not with these tribes."

"Why not?" Cano asked from the other side of Hamilcar.

"Not political," she answered. "Just bandits. Never in the pipeline for the heavy stuff. Poor. Not rich enough to buy for themselves. Rifles and machine guns are probably it . . . well, maybe a few rocket grenade launchers."

As if to punctuate, from the right flank of the column, up high among the rocks, came three loud and echoing bangs. The things, rocket launched grenades, were slow enough for Hamilcar to pick out the smoke trails and follow them to the warheads. None seemed to be coming for him.

While Cano and Alena were still thinking, and fighting their horses for control, Hamilcar began ordering. "Alena, take charge of the women and children." He pointed at a covered spot not far away. "Take one section for security. Go."

Before Cano could object, the boy ordered him, "Call in the rear guard. Leave some here; your judgment. With the rest, go relieve the point."

The rockets impacted among the people of the column—his people—making Hamilcar's pony begin to rear and start. The boy felt a sudden surge of rage—they're attacking my people—and took his gift-rifle from the sling that hung on the saddle. He stood in his stirrups, pointed the muzzle toward the direction from which the rockets had come, and shouted, in the language of his guards, "Follow me!" Then, spurring his pony, he started up the slope.

Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way, Cano thought, reaching for his radio to call in the rear guard. I think the boy can lead.

Alena froze for a moment, an objection forming in her mouth. But, No, he is the Avatar of God. God will protect him. She kicked her pony, moving up the column and directing the women and children to go where Hamilcar had ordered them. As she rode, shouting and ordering, she added in, for the men of the column, "Guards! Follow Iskandr!"

One look at the boy, charging the enemy alone but for the few of the company who'd been near him, was enough for the guards. They spurred their own ponies, charging in a ragged line after their god.

* * *

Bullets raised little dust-devil's at the pony's feet, even as others split the air around boy and beast with malevolent cracks. Somewhere behind Hamilcar one of the few guards with him cried out in pain. It only caused him to spur his own pony yet again, to drive it through the kill zone the ambushers had planned.

Firing hand gripped around the F-26, Hamilcar's long-practiced thumb flicked the weapon to high rate automatic, twelve hundred rounds per minute. This would empty the ninety-three round snail drum magazine in under five seconds, but was likely to prove the only way to hit something—or even to get close—from the back of the fast-galloping quadruped.

* * *

Horses, being, generally speaking, much more interested in the ancient game of mares and stallions, and having little interest in the affairs of men, were perhaps the very first conscientious objectors. Their objections had—again, generally speaking—been overruled. Being also herd animals, and responsive to imposed, group discipline, horses had long been used to inculcate in men the attitude required to impose discipline on other men.

Hamilcar's mountain pony knew, as soon as its light burden had jerked its head around and applied spurs, that this rider would not be brooked and there was no sense in trying to argue the matter. Indeed, it had already had six weeks to get used to the idea that it was going to do as the little biped directed.

And, ya know, the pony thought as it galloped up the slope, it could be worse. This one feeds me, gives me treats, keeps me clean, doesn't tire me out too badly, and, best of all, talks to me. So I'll trust it . . . for now.

I hope it gets me away from all these nasty sounds, though.

* * *

Closing rapidly on the enemy ambush line, Hamilcar saw a man, civilian clad but armed, easing around a boulder to his front. He pointed—it was nothing more precise than that—his F-26 and depressed the trigger. A dozen shots lashed out with a sound like cloth ripping. Every one of them, to the boy's disgust, missed their intended target. On the plus side, however, between the stone chips they sent flying and their own sonic booms, they sent that target, weapon dropped and arms flailing, back behind the boulder.

And then Hamilcar was through the enemy ambush and wheeling his pony around. At a certain point in the wheel he yanked the reins, just hard enough to stop the beast completely. He looked for his previous target and found him, cowering against the boulder. Snapping the rifle to a shoulder firing position, Hamilcar took aim and shot the bandit down without a second thought. He felt nothing except satisfaction.

That's one less rifle aimed at my people.

He scanned around quickly. Another of the ambushers, this one with a rocket grenade launcher, stood up from his cover. Trusting his equine to hold still, Hamilcar, both hands on the rifle, fired again to engage the RGL gunner. He didn't miss . . . rather, of the seven or eight bullets he sent toward his target, at least one didn't miss. The target spun to the ground, screaming and spraying blood from a ruptured gut.

Further down the slope he could see the guards coming on in two groups. First, and closest, just behind him in fact, were those who'd been close enough to hear his command and follow in a group. Further away, still spread in a long, wide and shallow wedge, were those who had heard Alena order them to his support and defense.

Hamilcar didn't spare either a second thought. Quite ignoring the chance that both of those groups were firing, more or less wildly, and so could hit him by mistake, the boy spurred his pony forward once again, this time paralleling the ambush line.

He trusted his pony enough by now to release the reins, counting on his legs alone to control it. With both arms free, he twisted in his saddle to bring his rifle to bear. Still on high rate automatic, he had, at most, another eight or nine bursts before he would have to change magazines.

The pony, a little winded now, moved less quickly than it had when galloping up the slope. This actually provided a somewhat more stable firing platform for the rider, enough so that Hamilcar hit his next target, and the one after, on the first burst he donated to each.

And then his guards were among the ambushers, shooting, hacking and stabbing. Some of the latter began to run, to no avail.

"Kill 'em all!" Hamilcar shouted over the din.

* * *

The roughly half of the guard maniple that remained pulled perimeter guard around the women, the children, and the dead and wounded. A cold wind whistled among the boulders, blowing the smoke from the fires generally northward. Other pyres arose in the distance, anywhere from two miles to half a dozen away.

Those were from Hamilcar and the other half of the guard company.

"He doesn't have a radio with him," Alena fretted. "What if he gets in trouble?"

Cano laughed and shook his head. "Fine witch you are, wife," the tribune said. "You know as well as I do that the only ones in trouble are the people who attacked us."

"But it's been three days!"

"You in a hurry to get somewhere?" Cano asked.

"No . . . but three days!"

The tribune's hand swept the skyline. "Relax, see that smoke, a new pyre every few hours? The boy's communicating. To us and everyone else who might attack us."

"But three days?"

* * *

It wasn't until the fifth day that Hamilcar returned, with the eighty-seven survivors of his guard and their dead slung across horseback. They didn't return alone.

"What are we supposed to do with over a thousand prisoners?" Alena asked, making an estimate of the numbers the Avatar of God was bringing in. "Our little valleys can't use the extra slave labor; they're just not that fertile."

Cano put his binoculars to his eyes and looked more closely than his wife could have. "Don't worry," he said, "they won't eat much. And it's closer to fifteen hundred. All women and children."

"You mean he killed all the men?"

"Anybody who could sprout a beard would be my guess. I don't see a man among them who isn't one of ours."

Alena decided to take it philosophically. "He took them; he must support them. And women are flexible, while children can be brought up properly. It will be well."

Cano shook his head. "Of course, it will be well," he said, sardonically. "He's your avatar; he can do no wrong in your eyes."

Alena caught her husband's doubting tone. "Heathen barbarian," she sniffed. "Iskandr is the Avatar of God."

And he has already shown four of the seven signs by which his people would know him.

* * *

There was a low fire burning in the hollow in which they sat, wrapped in their blankets. The moon, Bellona, was high in the sky, while Hecate was a mere hint of light, off to the east. Hamilcar was, for the nonce, a little boy again. "I didn't know what else to do with them," he said, apologetically. "We'd killed the men. Should I have left them to starve, or as the prey for any other bandits in the area?"

Cano put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "No, no, Ham. You did the right thing. Or as right a thing as circumstances allowed.

"On the other hand, have you considered what you're going to do with them? They're all yours now."

Hamilcar shrugged. "I hadn't given it a lot of thought. I mean, I'm only ten. But . . . maybe . . ."

"Yes?"

"Well, a lot of the women and girls are pretty. Couldn't some of the guards use wives . . . or second wives?"

"That's one set of possibilities. But what about the kids?"

"I'm not sure," the boy admitted. "Dad sent me with several mule loads of gold and silver. Already coined, even. Can I maybe pay some of Alena's people to raise the kids in fosterage. The languages seem pretty close."

Cano thought silently for several minutes. "You want some advice, Ham, since you're going to be living among the tribe for a while?"

"Please."

"Adopt the lot of them. Then, when you marry a woman or girl off, since she's yours you can be sure she'll be well treated. Same for any little ones you put in fosterage. As for the rest . . ."

"Yes."

"I'm afraid you're stuck with them. By the way, how did you know which villages to hit?"

Hamilcar sighed. "It wasn't very brave, I suppose, but the ones who fought back hard we broke off from. I figured if they still had weapons and men they probably hadn't had much part in attacking us. The ones where there were no weapons and men, because they had attacked us, we destroyed and looted. It's why I had to bring the prisoners in. They had nothing left but their eyes to weep with."

"Good boy," Cano said, once again reaching out to squeeze the kid's shoulder.