Conqueror g-2

by S. M. Stirling

  "Irons?" Ali said.

  That was the traditional punishment for the losers, when a dead Settler's brothers fought for the throne. Only a man complete in his limbs and organs could be Commander of the Faithful; Tewfik was disqualified because he had lost an eye in battle. A red-hot iron fulfilled the same purpose.

  "Irons?" Ali said again. "Oh, may Allah requite me if I should put out the eyes of one born of the same seed, of Jamal our father."

  Eunuchs brought out a stout iron framework, like a high bedstead with manacles at each corner. Akbar began to bellow and thrash; the guards held him down with remorseless strength while the plump, smooth-faced eunuchs snapped the steel cuffs around wrist and ankle.

  "Shaitan will gnaw your soul in hell if you shed a brother's blood!" Akbar yelled.

  Ali stood and made a gesture. The guards saluted with fist to brow, and marched out of the great chamber.

  "I? Shed your blood? Never, my brother."

  Ali stood by the iron rack, stroking his beard. He pulled a handkerchief from one sleeve of his pearl-sewn robe and made as if to wipe his brother's face; when the other man opened his mouth to shout a curse Ali deftly stuffed the length of silk into it.

  "There. It is unmannerly to interrupt the Settler. Do you not remember, brother, how you boasted to your captains during our brief, unfortunate civil strife-how you boasted to them that I should be sent into exile on an island in the Zanj Sea with only a mute crone to attend me? That a. . how did you phrase it? A perverted bastard son of a diseased sheep like me did not deserve the delights of the hareem, and that the pearl-breasted beauties who served me would be shared among your amirs."

  He clapped his hands. A line of women filed into the throne room, the long robes of their chadors brushing the floor and the sleeves hiding their hands.

  Ali turned. "Zufika, Aisha," he said. "All of you-hide not the light of your faces."

  Obediently, they dropped the filmy black cloaks to the floor. Several of them were carrying long slim knives; two bore a charcoal brazier between them, holding the metal frame with iron tongs. Others set a stool by the iron frame. Ali sank down with a satisfied sigh.

  "No, I shall not shed a drop of your blood," he said. "But you surprise me, with this unseemly conduct. Don't you know it is unfitting for an entire male to look on the faces of the Settler's women?"

  Zufika came forward, the knife in her hand. "Attend to it, my sweet one."

  Through the gag, Akbar began to scream.

  * * *

  "Sovereign Mighty Lord," Raj said quietly.

  Silence fell; even Barholm checked himself, dropping the finger he'd been wagging under Chancellor Tzetzas' nose.

  "With your permission, lord, I'll take command in the East. Superseding the Commander of Eastern Forces and the garrison commandants."

  There were nods all around the table, even from Gharzia. Right now the high command in the east was the sort of honor you took with you to an unmarked grave.

  "And I'll take seven thousand cavalry to the border."

  "Ridiculous-"

  "That'll strip the garrisons of-"

  "D'you want Ali to march right into East Residence-"

  Raj raised his hand. "Sovereign Mighty Lord, the troops are on their way to East Residence as we speak. Most of the garrison of the Western Territories. Veteran fighters, the cream of our armies."

  Barholm looked at him narrow-eyed. And the soldiers most loyal to you. The thought needed no words.

  "That's forty-five hundred men, perhaps a little more. I'll take another two thousand of the Brigaderos prisoners who've been reequipped and organized along Civil Government lines, and some of the battalions who were with me in the Southern Territories campaign and are now attached to the Residence Area command."

  Gharzia was scribbling on his pad. "Heneralissimo-" he began, giving Raj the title he'd been formally stripped of "-that'll still leave you well below Ali's numbers, discounting his infantry and line-of-communications troops. Shouldn't we pull back more of the Southern and Western Territories garrisons?"

  Raj spread his hands. They were brown with sun, battered and nicked and callused from swords and reins, as out of place in this quiet elegant room as the man himself.

  "That would take too long. Messers, Sole Autocrat, we don't have the time. Please understand, no matter what I do, the border area is going to get the worst working-over it's had in a century or more."

  observe, Center said.

  * * *

  — and Colonial dragoons rode through a Borderer hamlet, tossing torches through the windows. Fire belched back, red flames and sooty smoke turning the whitewash black above the openings. Here and there a limestone lintel burned with white-hot fire as it sublimed.

  — the last of a line of Arabs picked himself up off a woman and adjusted his robe. She lay motionless in the dust of the street, eyes empty, spittle running down from the corner of her mouth. The Colonial kicked her in the ribs, then called an order to the others. He had the crossed lines of a naik, a corporal, on the sleeve of his djellaba. Two of the troopers picked the woman up by the ankles and wrists, grunting at the limp dead weight. The naik jerked a thumb, and they dumped their semi-conscious victim head-first down the well.

  — bursting charges spouted plumes of smoke and rock and pulverized dirt across the massive sloping front of the dam. It stretched two hundred meters across a U-shaped valley amid dry rocky hills, a stone-paved road on its top and stone and iron gates at one side where the tumbling water of the flume was channeled into a canal. For long moments nothing seemed to happen, and then water sprouted from the surface where the explosives had been laid. It gouted like erupting geysers, turning to rainbow splendor at the edges under the bright noon light. The sappers whooped and danced as the rushing torrent eroded the earthwork of the dam like a lump of sugar under a spout of hot tea. Then the earth shuddered as the dam collapsed in earnest, and the lake headed downstream in a roaring wall of brown silt and tumbling rocks.

  * * *

  "Yes, yes," Barholm said. The other advisors were silent as the two Descotters met each other's eyes.

  "I think I can retrieve the situation," Raj said calmly. "Provided, of course, I have my Governor's full confidence. Do I have your confidence, my lord?"

  Barholm's lips tightened. "Yes, yes," he said again. He snapped his fingers for a parchment, wrote, signed, extended his hand for the Gubernatorial seal. It thwacked into the purple wax with an angry sound.

  He pushed it across the polished flamegrain wood of the table. Raj picked it up. It was a delegation of viceregal power, requiring all officers and officials of the Civil Government to tender him full cooperation-rare for a commander sent out into the barbaricum, unheard-of within the borders.

  If I smash the Colonials, Raj thought-unlikely as that seemed right now-that'll be the last strong opponent the Civil Government faces. He'd reconquered the Southern and Western Territories; the Base Area was far away, and the Zanj states of the Southern Continent even farther. Once the Colony had been beaten back, Barholm Clerett's position would be safer than any Governor's in the past five hundred years. Safe enough that he would certainly no longer need a heneralissimo supremo.

  "Yes," Barholm repeated. "Who could doubt that you have my full confidence?"

  Raj stood, bowing and tucking the Gubernatorial Rescript into the sleeve-pocket of his uniform jacket.

  "Then if you'll forgive me, Sovereign Mighty Lord, Messers."

  His face held an abstracted frown as he left the room, ignoring the murmur behind him. Landing five thousand men and thirty guns, with all their dogs and stores, wasn't easy at the best of times. Getting them straight off the ships and headed east fast without a monumental foul-up would be real work.

  disembarkation would be most efficiently achieved as follows, Center began.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Corporal Minatelli clattered down the steep wooden steps into the hold of the freighter, his hobnail boots biting into the pinewood. Th
e ship was pitching less now that the sails were furled and the steam tug was bringing it into port.

  Minatelli shook his head, still a little bewildered at the sight. He'd grown up in Old Residence, in the Western Territories, and he was familiar enough with fine building. But Old Residence had shrunk steadily since the Brigade conquered it, with forest and groves and nobles' country-seats spreading over the old suburbs. These days it was just a big city.

  East Residence was a world. It sprawled over the seven hills on all sides of its deep U-shaped harbor: houses and factories, up to the heights where gardens and marble marked the patricians' quarter and the Gubernatorial palaces. A haze of coal-smoke hung over it, a forest of masts and smokestacks darkened the water; squadrons of low-slung steam rams with their paddles churning the water, big-bellied merchantmen with grain from the Diva country of the far north, or ornamental stone and wine from Kelden, whole fleets of barges down from the Hemmar River. And all over the hills, the tracery of gaslight like fairy lights, still bright in the predawn hours.

  He hoped he'd have time to see the great Star Temple that Governor Barholm had built. It was supposed to make the one in Old Residence look like a hut-and now, that seemed possible.

  Minatelli's feet and body took him through the crowded hold of the troopship without more than an occasional jostle; after the cleaner air on deck, the stink of it hit him again. His eight-man section was waiting by their gear.

  "What's t'word, corp?"

  "We're heading east," Minatelli said.

  His own Sponglish was fluent now, but it still carried the accent of the Spanjol more common in the Western Territories. He'd been recruited into the 24th Valencia when Messer Raj came to make war against the Brigade; before that his local priest in Old Residence had taught him his letters and numbers, which was one reason he'd made watch-stander and then corporal so fast. Most of the Civil Government's infantry were of peon stock, and almost all illiterate.

  He made a quick check of the gear laid out on each of the straw pallets. Waterproof blanket, blanket, long sword-bayonet, cartridge pouches with seventy-five rounds, another fifty in a cardboard box, entrenching spade or short pick, mess tin, canteen, haversack, spare clothing if any, bandage packet, blessed chlorine powder for purifying water, three days' hardtack. .

  The corporal picked up one of the Armory rifles and stuck his thumb into the loop of the lever before the handgrip. A push and the block went snick, snapping down at the front so the grooved ramp on top led to the chamber. He peered down the barrel, raising it to the light. No rust, not too much oil. He snapped the lever back: clack. A pull on the trigger brought a sharp click as the pin fell on the empty space where a cartridge would lie in combat.

  "Not too bad, Saynchez," Minatelli said. "Awright, git the kit on."

  A chorus of grumbles. "Yor all gone soft," he said relentlessly. "Be off yor backsides soon."

  He swung his own on. Webbing belt, pouches, shoulder-straps, haversack and bayonet went on like a coat; all you had to do was snap the buckle on the belt. Everything else went into the blanket roll; you rolled that up into a sausage, strapped the roll shut with leather thongs, then bent it into a U-shape and slung it over your left shoulder with the tied-together ends at your right hip. He grunted a little as it settled down, shrugging until it rode properly; you could wear blisters the size of a cup if you didn't adjust it just right.

  An officer and bugler came down the main hatchway. The brassy notes of Full Kit and Ready to Move Out sounded, loud through the dim crowded spaces. The troops erupted in cursing, crowding movement, all but the most experienced veterans-they'd gotten ready beforehand. Minatelli grinned at his squad.

  "Happy now?"

  It was a lot easier to put your gear on when a couple of hundred others weren't trying to do the same, and that in a hold packed with temporary pinewood bunks.

  Saynchez snorted. He was a grizzled man in his thirties, one of two in the squad who'd been out east with the 24th the last time. He'd also been up and down the ladder of rank to sergeant and back to private at least twice; it was drink, mostly.

  "We goin' east fer garrison, er t'fight?" he asked.

  "Messer Raj didn't tell me, t'last time he had me over fer afternoon kave n' cakes," Minatelli said dryly.

  He wouldn't be looking forward to garrison duty, himself. Some preferred it; in between active campaigns Civil Government infantry were assigned farms from the State's domains, with tenant families to work them. You had to find your own keep from the proceeds, minus stoppages for equipment. Provided your officers were honest-which Major Felasquez was, thank the Spirit-the total came to about the same as active-service cash pay. About what a laborer made, with more security and less work. But it sounded dull, especially to a city boy like him, and he hadn't joined up to be bored.

  Mind you, some of the fighting in the Western Territories had been more interesting than he really liked. He remembered the long teeth of the Brigade curaissiers' dogs, the lanceheads rippling down, sweat stinging his eyes, and the sun-hot metal of the rifle as he brought it up to aim.

  "Word is," he went on, relenting, "that t'wogboys is over the frontier. Messer Raj's bein' set out to put 'em back."

  Saynchez shaped a silent whistle. Minatelli looked at him hopefully; the far eastern frontier with the Colony was only a rumor to him. Saynchez had been with the 24th when Messer Raj whipped the ragheads and killed their king.

  "Them's serious business," the older private said. "Them wogs is na no joke."

  "Messer Raj done whup 'em before," one of the other soldiers said.

  "Serious," Saynchez said softly. "Real serious."

  Minatelli slung his rifle. The bugle sounded again: Fall in.

  * * *

  A locomotive let out a high shrill scream from its steam whistle. Its two man-high driving wheels spun, throwing twin streams of sparks from the strap-iron rails beneath. The long funnel with its bulbous crown belched steam and black smoke, thick and smelling of burnt tar. Behind it eight iron-and-wood cars lurched against the chain fastenings that bound them together. They were heaped with coal, and heavy. It took more wheel-spinning and lurching halts before the train finally gathered way and rocked southward through the city towards the Hemmar Valley and the long journey east.

  Raj's hound Horace snarled slightly at the train. He ran a soothing hand down the beast's neck, clamping his legs slightly around its barrel. Other riders were having more trouble with their animals. Hounds tended to have good nerves; it was one of their strong points. They also tended to do exactly as they pleased whenever they felt like it, but everything was tradeoffs. Horace moved forward at a swinging walk, stepping high over the rails, his plate-sized paws crunching on the cinder and crushed rock of the roadbeds.

  More coal trains pulled out, building up the reserves at the stations farther east along the Central Rail; barges lay beside the dock, heaped with the dusty black product of the Coast Range mines. Other trains were making up, of slat-sided boxcars with 40 hombes/8 dawg freshly stenciled on their sides; forty men, or eight riding dogs. The railyards sprawled along a good part of East Residence's harbor. Barholm Clerett had built more kilometers of line than the previous ten Governors combined; whatever you said of him, he was a builder. Temples, forts, railways-the great Central Line from the capital to Sandoral completed at last-dams, canals. Much of it financed with the plunder from Raj's campaigns, and dug by captives from them.

  It was a mild early-summer day, the sky blue except for a few puffs of high cloud, both moons up-Maxiluna was three-quarters full, Miniluna a narrow crescent. Like the one on the Colony's green banner, the crescent of Islam.

  Raj shook his head at the thought. Beyond the moons were the Stars, and the Spirit of Man of the Stars.

  Today there were more soldiers than railway men in the marshaling yard. Men heaved rectangular crates onto the bed of a railcar. Each had the Star of the Civil Government stenciled on its side, and 11mm 1000 rnds. A group of artillerymen-they were st
ripped to their baggy maroon pants, but those had a crimson stripe down the outside of the leg-was manhandling a field gun onto the flatcar behind, heaving it up a ramp of planks and lashing the tall iron-shod wheels down to eyebolts on the deck. Oilcloth covers were strapped over the muzzle and breech, to keep dust and moisture out of the mechanism. Near-naked slaves with iron collars embossed with Central Rail were pulling in handcarts loaded with rations: hardtack, raisins, blocks of goat cheese, sacks of dried meat, barrels of salt fish. A farrier-sergeant of the 5th Descott came by leading a string of riding dogs on a chain lead snapped to their bridles; they surged away in wuffling alarm as a locomotive hooted, and the man clung until his feet were nearly off the ground.

  "Pochita! Fequez! Ye bitches brood, quiet a'down, er I'll-sorry, Messer Raj-"

  "Carry on, sergeant."

  "— I'll skin yer lousy hides, quiet there."

  The giant carnivores calmed, but their ears stayed back, and lips curled away from teeth as long as a man's finger. Few of the beasts had ever seen a steam engine before, much less ridden in a train. For that matter, few of the troopers had either, even the natives of the Gubernio Civil; most of them were countrymen, the cavalry from border areas or backwaters like Descott County. What the half-savage westerners he'd brought into the service thought of it, the Spirit only knew.

  A platoon of infantry passed him, rifles at their right shoulders and blanket rolls over the left. He read their shoulder-flashes, and gave the officer a salute.

  "Glad to have you with me again, 24th Valencia," he said. "That was good work you did at the siege of East Residence, and the pursuit."

  The lieutenant at their head snapped out his sword and returned the salute with a flourish. The men raised a deep shout of Raj! Raj! Some others picked it up, until he waved them to silence. In the relative quiet that followed, he heard a noncom cursing at a fatigue-party:

  "Didn't hear t' General tell ye t'stop workin', did ye? Move yer butts! Put yer backs inta it."

  What with one thing and another, it's probably for the best there's no time to address the men, he thought mordantly.