“Anything would help,” Ign understated, but the Chooser gave a diagonal nod of agreement. “I must leave you now, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Have care,” Ign told him when the Chooser began creeping back the way he’d come.
Ker-noll Jash replaced the Chooser at Ign’s side. He’d obviously waited for the other to leave. Jash had started as a Senior First of One Hundred, advanced to Ker-noll, or First of One Thousand, and though not yet a general, now commanded the remnant of the first division, or Ten Thousand, that had opposed the Allied landing. Ign considered him a prodigy, amazingly wise beyond his years. Unfortunately, he’d also grown remarkably cynical toward the Chooser and even First General Esshk.
“What will the enemy do indeed?” Jash asked mockingly.
“You’ll choke that tone out of your throat before I do it for you,” Ign snapped, his large crest rising through the gap in his helmet.
Jash looked down. “It won’t happen again,” he said, his words, if not his tone, penitent.
Ign studied him. His protégé was worn and battered after weeks of apparently futile, bloody battle. It was understandable if he’d taken a negative attitude. But young as Jash was, he was a respected leader now, looked to for inspiration by more than his own division. He must learn to control what he said and how he acted, or Ign would have to destroy him himself. For some reason, Ign could hardly bear the thought of that, but dared not think how corrosive Jash’s example might otherwise be to the entire army. He felt his fury drain away. “It matters,” he said softly so others couldn’t hear. “You must not let it happen again. This army is different from any the Gharrichk’k ever made. It thinks, it feels, and when it starts to feel as you do—that all has been for nothing—I . . . fret that it may stop being an army.” His tone lightened. “We approach that which I once promised you: the greatest battle that ever was, a battle that’ll be remembered, as will our parts in it. Is that not some comfort? Something to look forward to?”
“Certainly,” Jash said. “If we survive all the battles leading to the greater battle we crave.”
Ign blinked, unsure if Jash was sincere or still sarcastic. If it was the latter, Ign knew it wasn’t directed at him. It also meant Jash might’ve passed beyond the point where words alone could sway him. Or save him. “Well,” he said brusquely, dismissing the thought, “we do have some time, and I don’t think that great battle will be upon us for many days. Neither we nor the enemy is ready for it.” He looked Jash up and down. “You’ve been with me here from the start, as have the troops under your command. The time has come to rest them, feed them properly, and re-equip. A moon spent sleeping somewhere other than this reeking pit will do them—and you—much good.” He took a breath. “You’ll arrange to pull your division from the line this very night and march for the hidden assembly area south of New Sofesshk. It’s not as pleasant as the training ground beside Lake Nalak,” Ign apologized, “but the forest conceals it from the air.” He snorted. “One reason I’m surprised the enemy hasn’t firebombed it. Perhaps they believe it’s only filled with refugees from the city, but I won’t begrudge any blessing.”
“But, Second General . . .” Jash began to protest. He may have grown jaded toward First General Esshk, but remained devoted to Ign.
“Obey me,” Ign commanded harshly. “I do not debate you.” His tone softened. “And the main reason I’ll send you only that far is so you’ll be near enough to respond when I call.” His eyes narrowed and his crest fluttered. “Or react to any . . . unforeseen crisis arising in Old Sofesshk,” he murmured.
Ign was one of only a few aware of the campaign to eradicate opposition among the privileged Hij of the capital city. The original plan had been simple enough: dissenters were slaughtered by the garrison there, and their bodies sent to feed the army. Ign had actually been amused by the irony of that, but the culling had been more comprehensive than he expected or approved of (not that his approval was sought), and the population had dwindled to the point that much of the garrison had been withdrawn and sent north to protect critical industries. The remaining Hij must be very afraid—and very resentful, Ign mused. Perhaps enough to cause problems at the palace. Ign thought the purge misguided, particularly considering how indiscriminate it became, but he believed having gone so far, Esshk should’ve just finished the job.
He looked at Jash. “Commanding a division, you should be—deserve to be—a general, but I can’t make you one. Only the Celestial Mother”—they both knew that meant First General Esshk—“can do that.” Ign traced the tip of his lower jaw with a claw. “With this new way of reckoning rank, however, I do feel free to name you First Ker-noll, and place you above any other ker-noll you meet. That small thing may help you in times to come.” He paused and considered, remembering how few New Army generals they had, and how resentful some older, longer-established generals commanding mere Uul warriors could be. “And if the occasion arises and you believe you must, you have permission to act in my name. I know you won’t abuse that trust.” He hissed a sigh. “If I call you early, you must come with whatever troops you can gather. That might require you to . . . supersede certain superiors. If that’s the case, don’t hesitate. At the same time, I’m . . . uneasy about affairs in Old Sofesshk. Never forget your first duty remains the protection of the Celestial Mother. No matter what.”
Jash stirred, clearly conscious of the distinction Ign bestowed upon him, but his posture, narrowed eyes, and the position of his young crest betrayed he was troubled. “I’m to protect the Celestial Mother, no matter what,” he repeated slowly, then added, “against any threat?”
Ign’s eyes widened in surprise. He’d grown somewhat cynical too, and more than half suspected Esshk had deliberately left the Giver of Life in harm’s way, vulnerable to enemy bombing and even insurrection. He couldn’t imagine Esshk would take direct action against her, however. Apparently, Jash wasn’t so sure. As much as he liked him, it made Ign uncomfortable that Jash was already so cynical and that he—a mere virtual hatchling—already saw through the intrigue that Esshk, the Chooser, and to a lesser degree Ign himself, had built. But none of that mattered now, did it? The real threat lay to the east and south. “Of course,” he stated forcefully. “Go now—refresh yourself and your troops. I’ll need you strong, rested”—he paused—“and more focused, very soon.”
* * *
* * *
The Celestial Mother and Giver of Life to all the Gharrichk’k stood outside the Palace of Vanished Gods near the heart of Old Sofesshk, her fresh, young, coppery plumage dazzling in the morning sun. Her sister-guards, lethal protectors, moved around her in a loose ring as she began walking across the paving stones away from the arched western entrance to the palace. She gazed out upon the city. Old Sofesshk was ancient, older than could be imagined by one as young and recently elevated as she. Unlike the shapeless mud hovels across the river, often heaped five, six levels high, the buildings here were angular, geometric, and reminiscent of a time before memory when her people built more durably and in a way that still somehow pleased the eye. It had been the home of pampered, elite Hij, the Gharrichk’k ruling—and leisure—class. “Ruling” because their influence mattered to all previous regents, and “leisure” because, other than exerting influence, they had little else to do. Now somehow, for some reason, virtually all the Hij were gone, as were half or more of the troops left to protect them—and her—by her Regent Champion, First General Esshk. And the new city across the broad Zambezi, never built for durability anyway, was a smoke-blackened, rubble-strewn wasteland of death.
I’m very young, I know, she thought, but none of this seems right. It doesn’t feel right. Nothing her tutors ever told her was consistent with what she saw. The Gharrichk’k were conquerors, ever-expanding graspers of distant lands and takers of prey. No species could stand against them, nor had it ever. Some had joined them in the Hunt from time to time, agreeing to the Offer, but only
a handful of Japhs with no regency or lord were with them now. I wonder whatever became of others in the past? she asked herself again. Even her tutors hadn’t known.
So great had been the power of the Vanished Gods, however, that their merest haunting thoughts and humors still resonated around the world, pushing the wind, making rain, even stirring storms, no matter how long ago they left. Occasionally, their moods and tempers converged fiercely enough to move the very earth or spew fire in the sky from cracks in the land or mountains heaped atop it. These things couldn’t be conquered or opposed, even by Gharrichk’k. And it did no good to appeal to the Gods, because they had, after all, vanished. There was no record of what they’d looked like, but legend said they became creatures of the sky, of air itself, and left for other worlds—leaving only their daughter to rule here in their stead.
But I’m their blood-daughter, she railed inside, the legacy they left behind! Doesn’t that make me something of a God myself? My tutors all said it was so. Therefore, if I think something isn’t right—isn’t how it should be—how then can it be?
She stopped walking, her short feathery tail swishing behind her. “Because my lord Esshk tells me so; that I am wrong and all else is right,” she said aloud, wonderingly. Her sister-guards didn’t respond; it wasn’t their place, and they’d only ever reply if directly spoken to by her. Esshk had never actually told her she was wrong, of course. Not in so many words. But he’d assured her that the tutors, all very grasping and self-interested Hij, he’d recently implied, were either mistaken or willfully misleading her. And where are my tutors now? she wondered. I have no visitors anymore at all. Not even the Chooser!
The Chooser was very strange, his presence disquieting. A lot of that stemmed from her understanding of his order’s traditional role. She was indifferent to how it affected others, but she’d reached breeding age and would soon become a Giver of Life in fact as well as name. It was understood that Esshk would sire those first offspring, and she considered that only right. Not only because of his position, but also because he’d saved her and her surviving sisters. Saved her very line. But it bothered her that the Chooser could have the power to select which of her hatchlings might be preserved, regardless of her wishes. Didn’t that also undermine her understanding of a God’s gifted status?
A now-familiar drone, produced by the prey’s huge, four-engine flying boats, rumbled far overhead. It sounded like there were dozens of the things, and no rockets rose to contest them. They didn’t drop any bombs nearby this time. What was the point? They’d destroyed everything in view across the river—but they’d find something to wreck, somewhere. A profound frustration began to build, not only toward the Chooser and Esshk—despite her debt to both—but also with the realization that virtually nothing she wanted seemed to be coming to pass.
Her sister-guards’ heads all turned to face the west, and she followed their gaze. Esshk himself was striding toward her, leaving a cluster of guards a short distance behind. He stopped a pace away and bowed deeply. Alone, of all the beings on earth, Esshk didn’t prostrate himself at her feet. His dingy brown, striated plumage wasn’t remarkable, nor was his powerful body, for a warrior. But his sharp teeth gleamed bright in strong jaws, and the long, equally sharp ebony talons on his hands and feet had never seen hard use and were polished to a high sheen. Brilliant bronze armor glittered in the morning sunlight, as did his long red cloak, the emblem of the Regent Champion, dusting the ground behind him. Impressive as he was, Esshk was only about half her size, and she’d get larger still. Though tending toward plumpness, she’d probably never surrender to the gross obesity her mother had enjoyed. She’d seen for herself how that prevented her from escaping the Celestial Palace on Madagascar when the prey came there.
“You summoned me, Your Splendor?”
The Celestial Mother turned away, her own red cloak whirling behind her. “I did,” she stated almost petulantly. “Yesterday! And only now you come before me?”
“Accept my most abject apologies,” Esshk begged piously. “I came at once, but was too distant to arrive before now. Great things are happening! We develop new, wondrous weapons around the shores of Lake Galk northwest of here, where the flying machines of the prey have never ventured. And the battle against them is shaping exactly as I designed!” He reached up, grasping at the air with his claws. “Victory is not far distant!”
A far-off thumping noise reached them from the west, and the Celestial Mother recognized the sound of bombs exploding, probably ravaging the shipyards closer to Lake Nalak. She faced Esshk, gesturing toward the rumble of devastation. “Victory for whom?” she demanded. There, she’d said it, openly defying all his assurances for the first time.
Esshk blinked and took a half step back, but that was his only reaction. “For our race,” he adamantly replied. “The enemy wastes its might against decoys now, mere lures.” He waved at the thumping and the now-rising smoke. “They shatter such places daily, and we just as quickly rebuild them. General of the Sky Ando insists that will make the enemy even more certain the targets are important. So far, he’s been right.” He looked reflective. “Ando doesn’t like us, but he and his followers are proving to be the most loyal, useful Japhs I’ve known.” He snorted. “And compared to Kurokawa, even his honest dislike is reassuring.”
“I’m glad you find it so,” the Celestial Mother told him, scorn now rising in her voice, “but I’m not reassured at all. Despite your efforts to insulate me, I know the prey past the nakkle leg grows stronger every day. I know another army approaches from the south, and you’re having difficulty securing warriors in the numbers you demanded from the far regencies, despite my commands that they obey you!” Her eyes narrowed. “And no, I won’t tell you how I learned all this. My tutors are gone, the Chooser doesn’t come, even many of my servants have disappeared. Whether my tutors were right about other things or not, I’m sure no Giver of Life has ever been so cloistered.” She paused, thinking. “I remember little bits of my life, from before my elevation, something they told me was rare. Yet I know, even in her immobility and sequestration within the Celestial Palace, my predecessor had many advisors.” Her eyes widened again. “I have only you now. You, who showers me with comforts, guarantees, and platitudes of triumph”—she waved across the river—“while all I see is the opposite. With no further counsel, I begin to believe my eyes more than my ears.”
“You believe what you see here,” Esshk placated, “while I tell you truthfully about things beyond your view. And you wonder why I keep those others, who fill your mind with doubts, away? The enemy does grow stronger past the nakkle leg. Let them! They’re trapped, and when they feed the trap with all they have, it will close upon them! As for the army in the south, Fifth General Akor leads it in circles, exhausting it, bleeding it, even as his own force grows.” Esshk bared his teeth. “And any regency that denies me warriors—at your command—will be no regency when all is done. This I swear.”
The Celestial Mother sighed, twin gusts whistling from her snout. “So again you tell me all is fine. . . .”
“I do, because it is,” Esshk agreed.
“No!” the Celestial Mother snapped. “It’s not fine. I want my tutors back, someone to talk to.” She waved at the sky. “I want the prey’s flying machines to stop. I want all the prey gone from these shores, and I want it now! I command it, First General Esshk, and you will obey!” Speaking to him only as the foremost warrior of the empire, she’d ignored his other title that allowed him to exercise guardianship over her. And by formally omitting it in such a way, combined with a command, she’d technically terminated it, declaring she no longer required a champion and was ready to assume all the authority of her exalted status. She’d just blurted it out without thinking, goaded by frustration, and would’ve immediately taken it back if she could. She had no illusions that she was ready to lead her race through the current crisis alone, much less prepared to command such as Esshk!
/>
And she wasn’t prepared for Esshk’s reaction either. His crest flared in challenge and he snarled, snout wrinkling, teeth savagely bright. The Celestial Mother’s sister-guards tightened around her, baring their own teeth and raising their claws. They were all bigger than Esshk and could kill him easily. Some would probably die, particularly if he reached his sword, but none would hesitate to strike. Still, Esshk didn’t back down, nor did his crest even flutter with the slightest hint of submission. The Celestial Mother had never seen him so angry, and though she had no word for it, she was afraid.
Finally, Esshk spun away, striding toward his waiting guards. “I remain your Regent Champion,” he called back through clenched teeth. “You’re not ready to rule without guidance—nor may you ever be, if this is how you act with so much at stake. And as for what you ‘want,’ the sooner you learn you won’t always get it, the better it will be for our race.” He stopped and turned back, crest still high. “Your mother was a great Giver of Life, yet even she never recognized that few things can simply be wanted into existence. That’s what killed her in the end. See that you don’t similarly tempt the moods of the Vanished Gods.”
CHAPTER 5
////// Allied-Occupied Dulce
SE of El Paso del Fuego
Holy Dominion
February 1, 1945
Fleet (Vice) Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan, 2nd Lieutenant Orrin Reddy, and Flag Captain Tex Sheider stepped ashore from one of the motor launches off USS Maaka-Kakja (CV-4). This was the first time any of them had been ashore at Dulce, a city that had been, until recently, one of the most important Pacific ports in the Holy Dominion. Lelaa wore her white, high-collar tunic and sharply pleated white kilt over brindled fur, complete with one broad and two narrow gold stripes under a star on each sleeve and three stars on gold shoulder boards, marking her as the senior representative of the American Navy Clan in this theater of war. Tex Sheider was also in whites, though his short, fireplug form seemed to stress all the seams across his shoulders and sleeves. Orrin Reddy, looking like a younger version of his cousin Matt, was incongruous in khaki shirt, trousers, and the battered crush cap on his head. Even though he was the commander of flight operations on “Makky-Kat,” and therefore senior COFO in Second Fleet, he—like his cousin—refused lofty promotions. He also still adamantly maintained that he represented the Army Air Corps on this world.
Pass of Fire Page 8
