Union Forever

by William R. Forstchen

  Crossing through what had once been the Tugar lines, he silently looked at the great earthen mounds where tens of thousands of the enemy lay buried. Atop each of the mounds a tattered horsetail standard fluttered in the breeze.

  Looking back to the city, he felt a surge of pride. The northern half of the town, wiped clean in the flood, was still being rebuilt, but along more modern lines, with broad open streets paved with stone. The Rus architecture was still evident with ornately carved structures of logs, but in an area now called the Yankee Quarter his men had laid out half a dozen blocks in a more New England style, with whitewashed clapboard houses and »small town green flanked by several churches, a meeting and armory hall, and a barracks for the men of the regiment and battery who were single or, still being married to someone back in the old world, continued to honor their vows. He felt a deep respect for those unfortunate men. To him the marriage vow was sacred and unbreakable and he had always despised someone who took it casually, yet he could understand their current situation and respected those who had decided to remarry here. Some of them, however, had never adjusted. There had been half a dozen suicides since the war, and more than a score of men were now trapped in a tragic cycle of drinking or blinding melancholia.

  He felt that it was a real strength of his comrades that they had stuck together in this new world, choosing to settle in the same area of town, still bonded together by the work and military drill.

  Yet in most of the men he sensed a growing acceptance of their situation. Many had come to realize that here in Rus, they had skills that instantly catapulted them to positions of authority, offering opportunities unheard of back home.

  Vincent at twenty was a general, Ferguson at twenty-six was the chief engineer of a transglobal railroad. Webster, the financial wizard, at twenty-one was secretary of the treasury and would, Andrew suspected, be another millionaire like Commodore Vanderbilt.

  Even Emil Weiss had become somewhat less irascible, since there was no one to disagree with his theories of medicine. Emil's pet project had been a wonder to the Rus. While still serving as military dictator, Andrew had rushed through a host of ordinances, the key one being a system of sanitation following Dr. Weiss's recommendations. Water now came in through the aqueduct that drew its source from the rebuilt dam. For right now, water was still being drawn from common cisterns fed by the aqueduct, but in another couple of years Emil hoped to have every home in the entire city fitted with wooden pipes and a remarkable innovation of water-flushing privies. Sewer and storm-drain lines were being laid, the progress coming most swiftly in the northern half of the city scoured clean by the flood.

  The first completed section emptied into the Neiper just beyond the northwest bastion. Gates had been screaming in his paper, and rightfully so Andrew had to admit, over the fact that the hundred-and-fifty-yard section of bronze pipe designed to take the sewage out into the middle of the river had yet to be installed, and the waste thus was pouring straight out along the bank and floating down through the dock area.

  Emil had become nearly apoplectic when Mina had refused to manufacture the section, claiming a severe shortage of the precious metal. He was glad he had not run into Emil since yesterday's announcement of that decision. In fact, he realized a bit sheepishly that he had actually been dodging the good doctor.

  Cresting the low rise, Andrew reined in the horse, and alighting from the carriage, he offered his hand to Kathleen.

  "This is your favorite spot, isn't it?" she said almost chidingly.

  "Well, it does offer the best view."

  "I was hoping for a place just a little more secluded for our picnic."

  "In a moment, my dear," Andrew said, stretching and looking about. Below him, a mile away, the city of Suzdal was spread out on the bluffs rising up from the river. Turning to his right, he gazed with open affection at the base of power for all that had been created. The old dam had been replaced, and half a dozen factories were now laid out beneath it. Showers of sparks rose heavenward from the iron and steel mill, which was working at full blast, day and night, to meet the insatiable need for rails, forty tons a day for the drive eastward alone. The old emergency system of simply laying iron strips on top of wooden rails had been abandoned, once the rolling mill for proper rails had gone on line. Beyond the need for rails, there were the myriad requirements for farm implements, tools, rolling stock, the new rifled muskets, and the heavier twelve-pounder artillery which O'Donald insisted upon.

  Above the foundries were the four blast furnaces, where over a hundred tons of ore and another hundred tons of coke and limestone flux were cooked down every day to meet the insatiable need for metal and yet more metal. Alongside the foundry the railroad workhouse was a bustle of activity. Boilermakers, working under Yankee engineers, were turning out ever more powerful locomotives, along with all the required rolling stock of flatcars, boxcars, ore and coal hoppers, and passenger cars. Various smaller buildings were located around the foundry where an endless variety of specialized items were made, including a number of private enterprises that consumed the five tons of iron a day Mina had allocated for commercial interests. Safely removed by several hundred yards was the powder mill and ammunition depot. The stockpile of ammunition expended in the war had been replaced, but the supply of lead and copper had dried up when all contact with Cartha was lost the previous year. Fortunately the copper would start coming in from the Roum for more telegraph wire, and only the previous month a prospecting team had reported the location of a supply of lead a hundred miles to the west of the ford, in the direction of the Maya.

  He was tempted to start running a rail line in that direction, but they did not have the resources to go both ways as yet, and if the Tugars ever posed another threat, at least for the next several years it would come back out of the east and not from the west, where embassy and scouting parties reported a realm that was nearly desolate and empty from the plague and Tugar occupation.

  From down the river he could see a vast raft floating into the dockyards, where a train with a long row of flatcars awaited the cargo. North of town up by the ford a giant sawmill operation was booming, drawing power from the river, cutting the two thousand ties needed every day along with the millions of board feet of lumber required for rebuilding the cities.

  Above old Fort Lincoln, their first outpost on this world, was yet another factory complex. The original grist mill and sawmill were still running, along with the smaller foundry that turned out several tons a day, all of it spikes and footers for the rail line, while farther up were the mines for coal and ore.

  Between the mills, the rail lines, the factories, and the rail-laying crews, nearly thirty thousand men were working. It was an impossible expenditure of labor in any normal sense, but labor had been squandered under the old boyars, and with the new farming mechanization it was possible to keep such a number employed and fed. All the men were actually part of the regular army of thirty thousand, and one day a week was devoted to drill as well. It was a system which Andrew found helped to keep a unit cohesiveness, rather than simply waste manpower in garrison life, at a time when an entire nation needed to be rebuilt and entirely restructured.

  "What next?" Andrew whispered, looking with pleasure at all that had been created so far.

  "Still dreaming more plans," Kathleen asked, pulling out the picnic basket and settling down by Andrew's side, conceding that their lunch was going to be on the hill.

  "It's just that I've never been so happy before," he said quietly, looking over at her. "I thought the fighting would never end, either back in our old world or here. It was eating into my soul, the killing, the endless killing. At least I've lived long enough to see that the price might have been worth it in the end."

  He looked over at her and smiled.

  "I used to think that somehow I was a sacrifice for others, there was nothing in my life anymore. That maybe after me, there would be people who would live better, live in peace. Now I'm actually starting to believe
some of it is meant for me as well."

  Almost shyly, he reached out and placed his hand over her stomach, then with a start pulled back.

  "Does she always kick that hard?"

  "He wants to see his father," Kathleen said with a shy grin lighting her features.

  "She."

  "Maybe both, like Tanya and Vincent."

  "God help me," Andrew whispered.

  "No, God help me. Remember, I'm the one that'll have them. You'll just get to pace around in the next room."

  He gave her a worried look, and, smiling, she leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips.

  Laughing, he shifted position to find a way that he could comfortably embrace her, oblivious of the fact that atop the hill they were visible to any curious onlookers.

  For the moment at least, he felt safe.

  Chapter Four

  The water swirled in a raging torrent, plucking with a greedy power, drawing him into its vortex with a hideous strength that could not be resisted. It was the same, always the same, and though his mind screamed to fight, his body would not.

  He let go and the blackened flood pulled him under.

  Oh dear God, how many times, how many times. This time he would let go. This time he would drown. And then the fire built within, the choking terror as the darkness washed around him.

  No!

  Gasping, he kicked his way up, the air in his lungs like fire, ready to explode, to shatter him into riven sparks of dying flame. With a shriek he reached the surface, thrashing, fighting. Kicking, he fought against the flood. The bottom, he could feel the bottom again. Splashing through the darkness, he floundered, fell, and as if running in mud, his mind numb with panic, he struggled toward the flame-engulfed shore.

  The hands clasped around his legs.

  God, make it stop! The shriek tried to burst out, but was silent, caught in his throat, as if his words were useless and would not be heard.

  The hands grasped and pulled, grabbing his waist, dragging him back. Again they had him.

  As if his eyes contained a will beyond his control, they looked down. Woodenly he turned and gazed back out upon the torrent.

  It was a river of Tugar corpses, flowing into the darkness. Bloated bodies swirled past, pale and ghostly in the firelight. Bodies that writhed in agony, reaching out to him with taloned hands. Human bodies rolled by, with bloated stomachs, swollen features of the drowned. All of them, all that he had ever killed, all the tens of thousands, tumbled past him, gazing upon him with sightless eyes. The hands reached higher, pulling him down, dragging him back into their fetid embrace.

  A graying corpse of a Tugar rose up out of the maelstrom clutching at him, pulling him back into the flood.

  The blackened flood sucked him into the darkness, the hands grasped him, pulling him into their sodden flesh reeking of death.

  "God, God forgive me!"

  "General, for Kesus's sake, general, wake up!"

  Vincent felt a slap across his face. The world returned.

  He struggled for control, and this time he simply could not. A shuttering sob escaped him.

  "My God, I'm in hell."

  Gentle hands came around his shoulder. He could feel the bristle of a flowing beard against his cheek; it flashed memories of his father holding him when fear took hold of him in the night. Always his father would be there by the side of the bed, to scoop him up, to hold him and whisper the fear away.

  "I'm in hell," he gasped, struggling for control.

  "It's all right, son. You've done nothing wrong. It was only the dream again."

  Shaking, Vincent struggled. He was the strength, the one that they looked to. It was always the same now. God, could he never be the frightened boy again? Because in his heart that was how he felt all the time. To all of them he was the general, or the ambassador, and most of all the hero, the one who had slain tens of thousands and saved them all.

  "It's all right, son, I understand," the old man whispered.

  How he wanted to break down, to sob, to pour out all the terror within to this old man who held him. Just for once to let go and retreat back. On rare nights, all so precious they were, there would be the one other dream. It would be years ago, long before all this had ever happened. He was still a student at the Oak Grove Quaker school in Vassalboro. The scent of apple blossoms drifted in the air, and lazily he could look out the window to the beautiful sweep of the Kennebec Valley. The dream was laden with a bittersweet dreaminess, a longing back to an innocent lost time so long ago, of running through the high grass of summer, his dog bounding joyfully by his side. Oh, God, to somehow be there again, to smell the breeze and feel the lazy peace. Before he had gone off to war and lost his innocence forever.

  The old man was rocking him gently, and his thoughts returned. The old man could sense the coming back from the terror, and gently he let go and sat back.

  "It's all right, son," Dimitri whispered, "I understand. I've heard you before but knew you would not want me to know. I'm glad, though, that I finally acted."

  Embarrassed, Vincent tried to look away, but Dimitri grabbed hold of him and forced him to turn back.

  "Out there," Dimitri whispered, nodding toward the door, "it'll always be the same. I will be your adjutant, old Dimitri, and you will be the famous general. But you are only human, son. I know the burden. A man cannot be human if the killing does not haunt him.

  "Old Dimitri will keep the secret of his young hero." He smiled. "And I think you even more a man for knowing this of you."

  Vincent struggled to hold the tears back, which burned hot at what he had just heard.

  Unable to speak, he could merely nod his head in thanks.

  "Come, general," Dimitri said, his voice changing. "I had to wake you anyhow."

  "What's wrong?" He felt himself instantly awake, the nightmare disappearing, coiling within to come back later.

  "Roum is under attack, my general. I think we have a war on our hands. Marcus wants you at once."

  "Jesus Christ, not again."

  He clambered out of the bed, even as Dimitri shouted for the orderlies.

  "What the hell is going on?" Vincent snapped, the nightmare forgotten, impatient now with even a moment's delay as Dimitri and two assistants helped him to get dressed.

  "A messenger came in to Marcus about half an hour ago. Raiders hit the port of Ostia shortly after midnight."

  "That puts them about five miles away," Vincent replied, even as he looked over at the clock ticking on the mantel. It was nearly three. Whoever they were, they could have done a lot of damage by now, or worse, could be moving inland.

  "They're not Tugar?"

  "Human, that's all we know."

  At least that was a relief. During the winter, scattered bands had hit the southern and eastern frontiers of Roum, several hundred miles to the southeast. Several thousand had been taken, but then the feared enemy had seemed to disappear off the face of Valennia.

  Vincent buckled on his sword and turned to look in the brass mirror. Even at three in the morning an ambassador had to look calm and collected, the perfect warrior-statesman—even if he was only twenty. Reaching down, he unsnapped his holster, drew out the revolver, and checked that the caps and load were all right. The precious weapon had been a present from Emil. It was a light .36 Colt, intended more to impress than protect and one of only a handful of revolvers on the entire world. He spun the cylinders and bolstered the weapon.

  "Have the regiment and batteries formed in front of Marcus's palace."

  "I've already had the alarm sounded," Dimitri replied.

  Vincent looked over and smiled.

  "Good. We've got an alliance with Marcus, and I want him to know right now that we plan to stand by it. We don't know what the situation is yet—it might be some damn pirate raid. Something's been brewing with those Carthas. Maybe this is it."

  "Let's go."

  He stepped out into the darkened hallway, and the guards by his door snapped to attentio
n. Vincent looked at them for a moment, they nodded, and his gaze shifted to Dimitri. Turning, he pressed on, Dimitri by his side. He was curious but did not want to ask.

  "The men think you are refighting the old battles, soldier's dreams, nothing more."

  Soldier's dreams. God, he was a soldier. O'Donald had called him one of the best killing machines on this planet.

  "Let's go see if we need to practice our craft again," Vincent said, as if to himself, and leaving the palace they headed into the forum, which was already aswarm with men. To the south he could see the horizon glowing red. Again he was about to go into battle, and his stomach tightened with excitement and fear.

  Squinting, he looked across the water as the mist took on a flat opaque light, breaking and swirling. The small port of Ostia was before him, resting on the shores on the Inland Sea, the River Tiber forming its northeasterly edge after tumbling down through the final cataracts and proceeding to the coast.

  Most of the city was shielded from view by a low ridgeline half a mile out from town. All he could see was the flames leaping into the air, and beyond that, out in the misty bay, half a hundred galleys moving in toward the city. It was going to need a lot of rebuilding after this experience, Vincent realized, watching glumly as flames engulfed the small port from one end to the other.

  Vincent lowered his field glasses and offered them to Marcus, who looked at them with curiosity.

  "It will enable you to see objects far away," Vincent said.

  Marcus raised the glasses and gasped as he pointed them out to sea.

  "Carthas," he hissed angrily.

  "What the hell for?" Vincent said as if to himself. "If reports are right, they'll have their own horde arriving in another six to eight months. There's no sense to this."

  Vincent looked back over his shoulder. The paved road leading down from the city and across the broad open valley behind him was covered with a long serpentine column of men, the city reserves, mostly armed slaves. The first and only legion of Roum, which had been drilling since the Tugars had been repulsed, was deploying out on the slope behind him, forming a battle front of nearly a thousand yards. Directly behind him stood the men of the 5th Suzdal, with the Novrod light batteries beside them.