by David Weber
"I suppose there is that," the captain agreed.
It took an hour, but the company finally broke free of its brothers in arms, after profuse expressions of eternal friendship and undying mutual fealty, and started back on the long trail to the sea.
Marching upcountry.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The messenger lay prostrate in front of the throne. He couldn't think of any bad news in what he had to convey, but that didn't really matter. If the king was in a bad mood, the messenger's life was forfeit, anyway, no matter how important he was.
"So, 'Scout,' " the king said with a grunt of humor, "you say that the humans will come out on the Pasule side of the river?"
"Yes, O King. They follow the old trade route from Voitan."
"Insure that they bypass Pasule." The monarch picked at the ornate intaglio of his throne. "They must come to Marshad first."
"Yes, O King," the messenger said. Now to figure out a way to do that.
"You may go, 'Scout,' " the king said. "Bring them here. Bring them to me, or kill yourself before We lay Our hands on you."
"It shall be done," the messenger said, wiggling backwards out of the king's presence. Cheated death again, he thought.
* * *
"Cheated death again." Julian sighed as the company broke through the final screen of trees into obviously civilized lands.
"Yeah," Despreaux said. "Damn, but I'm glad to be out of the jungle."
The passage over the hills from Voitan hadn't been terrible. In fact, they hadn't lost even one person to the jungle flora and fauna, although Kraft in Second Platoon had been badly mauled by a damnbeast.
The march from Voitan had also given them time to shake down into their new organization. The reduced company had separated into just two platoons, Second and Third, and they were getting used to all the empty files. Not happy about them, but adjusted.
All in all, they were probably in better shape both physically and in morale than at any time since leaving Q'Nkok, and the vista stretching out before them would help even more.
The region was obviously long and widely settled. Cultivated fields, interspersed with patches of woodland, spread for kilometers in every direction, and the river the old path had been following was flanked in the middle distance by two towns, one clearly larger than the other.
Captain Pahner waved for the column to hold up as it cleared the jungle completely. The bare track they'd been following for the last day had suddenly become a road. Not much of one these days, perhaps—weeds and even small trees thrust up through the roadbed's cracked, uneven flagstones—but it showed that this had once been an important route.
The company stopped by the ruins of a small building. The structure was set on a raised mound, one of many scattered across the floodplain, and its construction had been massive. It looked as if it had been a guardhouse or border station to receive the caravans from Voitan, and Pahner stepped up onto its two-meter-high mound to watch the caravan pull to a halt as the company deployed.
The Marines had been training hard with their new weapons, and it showed. Bead rifles and grenade launchers were still slung over their shoulders, but their primary weapons were clearly the short swords and spears they carried, and the small units spread out in a cigar perimeter, one swordsman to each spear carrier. Once Pahner had the shields designed, the formation would be quite different, but that was going to have to wait. The tower shield was another thing the Mardukans had apparently never discovered, so he would have to have them built somewhere.
And that somewhere would, hopefully, be here.
He made another gesture, and his "command team"—a grandiose term for a small group of battered Marines and civilians, but the only one he had—gathered about him. Sergeant Julian was filling in as Intel officer in the wake of Lieutenant Gulyas' death, but other than that, it was the same group he'd faced in Voitan.
"Okay," he said, gesturing to the two towns, "it looks pretty much the way the Voitan contingent said it would. This has to be the Hadur region." Heads nodded, and he wished—again—for an even half-way decent map. According to the Voitanese, the Hadur region took its name from the Hadur River, which had to be a truly major stream even for Marduk from the descriptions. He had no reason to doubt them, but he hated trying to fix his position without a reliable map. "If we're where we think we are," he went on with a crooked smile, "that larger town should be Marshad. And that," he pointed to the smaller town "must be Pasule."
Heads nodded again. Marshad had been the primary destination for caravans from over the hills before the fall of Voitan, which had made it a wealthy mercantile center. Pasule, on the other hand, was just a farming town, according to T'Leen Targ.
"I'd almost prefer to get our toes wet locally in Pasule before we tackle the big city," he went on, "but if we're going to get the shields and armor made, it will have to be in Marshad. On the other hand, we need resupply, too, and Pasule might be a better source for that."
As he spoke, he looked around the nearer fields, where peasants had stopped their work to gawk at the force coming out of the jungle. Most of the workers were breaking ground for another crop of barleyrice, but other laborers were harvesting the ubiquitous kate fruit. That was good. It meant that both the fruit and the previous barleyrice harvest would be fully available when it was time to buy.
"Yeah," Jasco agreed, with a grunting laugh that sounded almost Mardukan, as he, too, watched the workers, "these damn pack beasts go through some grain."
"Sergeant Major, I want you and Poertena to handle the resupply and procurement of the shields."
"Got it." The NCO made a note in her toot. They'd discussed the possibilities before, of course, but now that they were actually able to see the lay of the land, it seemed clear that Pasule would be a better, and probably cheaper, source for the food.
"We've seen that they can make laminated wood, plywood," said Roger, who'd been quietly listening. "We should have the shields made out of that."
"Plywood?" Jasco sounded incredulous, but, then, he hadn't been present to hear the prince discuss sword making with the Voitanese leaders. "You've got to be joking . . . Your Highness. I'd want something a little more solid than that!"
"No, he isn't joking." O'Casey shook her head. "The Roman shield was probably the most famous design ever to come out of Terran history, and it was made out of 'plywood.' The histories always call it 'laminated wood,' but that's what plywood is, and it's enormously tougher than an equivalent thickness of 'solid' wood."
"They have to have metal or leather rims to protect the edges," the prince continued, "but the bulk of the shield is plywood."
"Okay." Pahner nodded. "Kosutic, coordinate with Lieutenant MacClintock on the design of the shields." He looked around and shook his head. "I hope I don't have to remind anybody that we need to maintain as low a profile as possible. We can't afford another butt-kicking like Voitan. Hopefully, we'll be greeted as heroes for taking out the Kranolta and be able to pass on quickly. But if we get into a hassle, we have to think our way out of it. We're way too short on ammo to shoot our way out!"
Corporal Liszez trotted toward the command group with one of the locals. The Mardukan wore a haversack full of tools and appeared to be some sort of tinker.
"LT?" the corporal said as she approached Roger.
"Whatcha got, Liz?" the prince replied with a nod.
"This scummy's gabbling something, but the translator can't make anything of it."
"Oh, great," O'Casey sighed. "Dialect shift. Just what we needed."
"Get on it," Pahner said. "We have to be able to communicate with these people." The local was gesturing across the river at the distant city, obviously agitated about something. He either wanted the company to go there, or else he was warning them away. It could have been either, and Pahner nodded and gave him a closed-lip, Mardukan-style smile. "Yes, yes," he said "we're going to Marshad."
Either the smile or the words seemed to calm the local. He gestured,
as if offering to lead them, but Pahner shook his head.
"We'll be along," he said soothingly. "Thank you. I'm sure we can find our own way."
He smiled again and started to wave the still-gabbling local politely away, then paused and looked at O'Casey.
"Do you want to talk with him?"
"Yes." She sounded a bit absent, obviously because she was concentrating on the translation—or lack thereof—from her toot. "I'm starting to pick up a few words. Let him walk with us to the town, and I'm pretty sure I can have most of the language by the time we arrive."
"Okay," Pahner agreed. "I think that's about it. Questions? Comments? Concerns?"
There were none, so the company reassembled and moved on up the road.
* * *
The ancient high road became even more cracked and damaged looking as it entered the planted areas, despite clear indications of repairs. Heavy deposits of silt had been thrown up to either side, obviously as the result of post-flood road clearing, which forced the company to move between low, brown walls. In places, the walls built up to true dikes to protect the barleyrice crops, and in places the dikes were planted with the tall kate trees.
The peasants harvesting the kate fruit dangled from ropes or perched on tall, single-pole ladders that were unpleasantly reminiscent of scaling ladders, but they paused in their labors to gape at the human contingent as it headed toward the distant city-state. Whether because of the humans' outlandish look, or the fact that they came on the road from dead Voitan, the locals' reaction to them was far different from reactions in Q'Nkok.
"You'd think they'd never seen a human before," Denat snorted.
"Buncha rubes," Tratan agreed with a grunt. "Ripe for the plucking." He looked down at the diminutive human striding along beside him under his huge rucksack. "What should we teach them first?"
"Poker," Poertena replied. "Always start wit' poker. Den, I dunno. Maybe acey-deucy. If they really stupid, cribbage."
"They pocked," Cranla said with a grunt of laughter. He waved at one of the harvesters. "Hello, you stupid peasants. We're going to pluck your merchants for all they're worth."
* * *
Julian pointed at the Mardukan tribesmen with his chin.
"They've taken quite a shine to Poertena," he said to Despreaux.
"Birds of a feather," the other squad leader responded absently. "Is it just me, or does this place look fairly run down?" she went on.
The company was approaching a fork in the road, where the travelers had to choose between Marshad or Pasule. There was another official looking building on a mound where the roads diverged, but although it was in better repair, it had obviously been converted into an agricultural outbuilding.
"Yeah," Julian said, glancing at the structure. "I think the loss of the Voitan trade must have hit them hard."
The company took the left fork and headed for the river. The solid stone bridge which crossed it was the only structure they'd so far seen which appeared to have been properly kept up. In fact, there'd been some obvious renovations—the well-fortified guard posts on either bank looked like fairly recent additions.
The guards on the near bank gestured for the caravan to halt, and Julian looked around as the long train of flar-ta dragged to stop. An outcropping of the underlying gneiss of the Hadur region rose steeply on the right side of the road, he noted. The oxbow river took a bend around it, and an extension of the outcropping acted as a firm base for the bridge.
The hill was surmounted by trees and what appeared to have once been a small park. A well-made road in very poor repair wound to the summit, but it was obvious that the track was rarely used anymore. Only a thin path cut through the layered silt and entangling undergrowth on its lower sections. Despreaux followed his eye, and shook her head as Captain Pahner argued with the guards on the bridge. They obviously felt that the travelers ought to keep themselves—and the business they represented—on this side of the river.
"This place has really been hammered," she observed.
"No shit," Julian agreed. "It looks like it used to be a pretty nice place, though. Maybe it'll get that way again with Voitan back in business."
"We'll see," Despreaux said. "The old Voitan wasn't built in a day."
"No," Julian acknowledged as the caravan lurched back into movement, "but that guy from T'an K'tass looked like he was going to try to do it pretty damned fast."
"That he did," Despreaux said, but her tone was a bit distracted, and she nodded at the sour looking guards on the bridge as they passed. "Those guys don't look happy."
"Probably pissed at all the money they're losing," Julian said. "We're about to pump a lot of cash into the local economy . . . on the other side of their bridge."
"We hope," she answered.
The approaching city-state was huge, much larger than Q'Nkok, but it had a seedy air. Once past the bridge area, the road was once again rutted and cracked from traffic and ill repair. In fact, it was in worse shape than it had been on the other side of the river, and the peasants plowing the fields to either side of the roadbed also seemed less interested in the passage of the company.
Flar-ta were useless as draft animals, because they were far too large to move effectively in the fields. That meant that the only way to plow was to use teams of Mardukans for traction, which was a remarkably inefficient method. It was also extremely hard work, but while the plowers on the far side of the river had taken the opportunity for a break while they watched the company march by, those on this side all kept their heads down, concentrating on their tasks. And while the majority crop had been barleyrice on the far side of the river, on this side most of the fields were being sown with legumes or a crop the humans didn't recognize. The Marines had encountered the legumes before, and promptly christened them bullybeans, but they'd never seen the other crop, and the locals seemed to be planting a lot of it. At least two-thirds of the fields they could see seemed to be dedicated to producing whatever it was.
"I wonder why there's a difference," Julian said, pointing it out to Despreaux, who shrugged and gestured across the wide expanse of fields. There was another hill barely visible in the distance, but it was apparent that the local city-state dominated a vast area.
"They've got plenty of room," she pointed out. "This is probably just their area for bullybeans and . . . whatever that other stuff is."
"I guess," the intel NCO said. "But that much change just from one side of the river to the other?" He shrugged. "I'm no farmer, but it seems kinda strange to me."
"I suppose we'll find out why they do it eventually," Despreaux said with a shrug of her own. "But I wonder what that other plant is?"
* * *
"Dianda," the itinerant tinker said to the chief of staff. "It is . . . urdak into wosan . . . like that," he finished, gesturing to the chameleon cloth uniform the civilian wore.
The local was named Kheder Bijan. It was obvious he expected some sort of reward from the company for guiding them to the clearly evident city which the ignorant foreigners could never have found on their own, but the chief of staff was happy to have him along, anyway. He'd been a good way to update the language program, and he was a mine of information about conditions around Pasule. He was strangely uninformative, however, about Marshad.
"Ah!" Eleanora said. "Something like flax or cotton!" The software had updated the local dialect well enough for Pahner to talk their way across the bridge. She was puzzled by the fact that the officials of Pasule had been more trouble than Marshad's. The local guards had simply stepped aside, almost as if the humans had been expected.
"Yes," the local said. He rubbed a horn in thought while he considered the best way to explain. "We make cloth from it for trade."
"A cash crop." The chief of staff nodded. "Where are the subsistence crops?" she asked, looking around. "I'd think you'd be planting more barleyrice than this."
"Well," Bijan said, fingering his horn again, "I don't really understand farming. I fix things." He gestured
with his haversack. "I suppose there must be other farms around here somewhere."
"Who owns the land?" Eleanora had been pleasantly surprised to discover that in the Q'Nkok region the farmers owned their own land, for the most part. The farms were passed down through complicated cultural "rules" that moved them from generation to generation more or less intact. That denied inheritance to most of the "younger sons," but that was a common problem for agrarian societies the galaxy over, and the important thing was that the farms weren't broken into minuscule lots that were impossible to manage. Nor were they sold or lost in chunks to form giant latifundia. The Houses of Q'Nkok had been well on their way to the sort of backward agricultural "reform" which would strip the peasantry of land ownership, but hopefully the destruction of their power would stop that in its tracks. At this level of technology, small-scale "yeomanry" farming was as good as it got.
"I'm not sure who owns it," the tinker said, fingering his horn again. "I've never asked."
The chief of staff blinked, then smiled cheerfully. The "tinker" had blithely nattered on about the minutiae of the inner workings of the council of oligarchs who ruled Pasule, and the different groups of independents and sharecroppers who farmed the land on that side of the river. Now, on the side that he claimed he was from, he suddenly clammed up. She wouldn't have survived a day in the imperial court if that hadn't set off some alarm bells.
"That's interesting," she said with complete honesty. "I suppose a tinker wouldn't really care, would he?"
"Not really," Bijan said. "I just look forward to returning to my beautiful city!"
* * *
"Nice city," Kosutic said tugging at an earlobe.
"It's okay," Pahner replied.
Marshad was larger than Q'Nkok, but smaller than the former Voitan had been, with streets that wound up the hill from several gates in the curtain walls.
The gates were unusual. They were constructed of thick wood, well joined and even caulked, and their bottoms were lined with copper, which must have cost a fortune. There was also a base upon which they were, apparently, supposed to seat, but it was shattered, and any metal which might once have sheathed it was long since gone.
