by David Drake
The chief relaxed a bit, sat back on his own haunches, and took another long drink from the wine jug.
“Isn’t that both marvelous and strange?” he continued. “That some people can completely transform into other people so easily? Hartzmans to Redlanders. Mbunga to Redlanders. And all of them somehow Blaskoye at the same time. It is very confusing. We Remlaps are not very good at doing that sort of thing. This is our fate in the world, I fear, to be very good at being only ourselves, however poor selves we are, and not very good at being someone else. So when the Blaskoye asked us if we would like to be Redlanders and be ruled by them, they did not take it well when we declined the great honor that they wish to bestow upon us. Perhaps this was ungrateful, I admit, but what can one do? We are only poor Remlaps, after all.”
“Maybe that’s too bad,” said Abel. “It might’ve made things a lot easier, like you say.”
“And now here I sit captured by—oh, I’m sorry, I mean the guest of—people from the Land itself. These people would like to hear me tell tales of the wonderful and generous Blaskoye, where they are gathering, where they will strike next, only I cannot on account of my own tribe’s stubborn and troublesome inability to be pliable and flexible, not to mention all those other words that the Blaskoye employ when they might have adopted the single command: ‘Bow down and do as we say.’ It is very tiresome to be the leader of such a truculent group of misfits as the Remlaps.”
“I feel for you,” Abel replied. “But maybe you can answer one question.”
“Certainly,” said Remlap. “I would be very gratified if I could be of at least some use to you.”
Abel looked the man straight in the eyes. “Tell me where to find the Blaskoye with the silver knife that shines like water.”
It was as if the brushfang the Redlander had spoken of before had actually bit him. He recoiled from the question in a physical way, as if he were flinching from a real blow. “Oh, you don’t want him,” said the chief.
“So you know who I’m talking about?”
“Most assuredly. That is not the same thing as knowing where he might be found. In fact, there is no one place he will ever be found. That is part of his charm, they say.”
“What’s his name?”
“He goes by several.”
“What do you call him?”
Gaspar broke Abel’s gaze, looked away.
“It’s better not to speak of such things, such people, lest one call them down upon oneself.”
“And you do not think I am dangerous?”
“I think you are dangerous.”
“But not as dangerous.”
“No.”
“Should I kill some of your children? Take a woman or two and give her to my men? Would that convince you?”
“Perhaps,” said the other with a thin smile. “But you might have trouble finding the children, as we have hidden the remaining ones rather better than we have hidden ourselves. Even I do not know where they have been taken, and you might find our women a bit . . . used. For the Blaskoye have visited us, you see. Our camp was in better country, closer to the oasis, in former days.”
“The oasis,” said Abel. “I would like to go there.”
“I do not think you would enjoy it very much,” the chief answered with a dry chuckle. “Unless you particularly like the taste of your own gonads. But then, there’s no accounting for taste among you people of the Land.”
“I’m sorry, let me correct myself. I would like to go near there,” Abel replied. “You know how the saying goes—”
How does the saying go, Center?
I have several possibilities that might be appropriate. Try: “missed the target, but slew the dak,” Center replied.
Abel repeated the aphorism. Evidently, it was the right one, for the Remlap chief nodded in agreement. “True words, true words,” he murmured.
“I can pay you to guide me. A dont and a dak. One to ride now. One later.”
“Two, a dont and a dak?” The man said, suddenly taken aback, but just as suddenly seeking to cover it up so that his bargaining position wouldn’t be compromised. “Such an amount may seem a generous present to one from the Land, where they are used to pull a pointy stick through the ground, or are yoked, the poor things, to teams of others to pull an overloaded wagon. But here in the Redlands, we are shepherds of a flock and not farmers. We require more for existence, in the same way that you require a large harvest of rice or barley for yours. By the way, I have tasted both grains, and I salute you for your bravery in consuming them day after day.”
“One,” Abel said. “The dak. You can ride with someone else, I suppose.”
The other looked extremely displeased that the bargaining was going in the opposite direction than what he had hoped. “But this is unjust.”
“Would you like to go for none?”
“I protest most stringently. You’re using strong-arm tactics on me! Most uncivilized.”
“Not ten minutes ago you were worried about whether or not I was going to eat you,” Abel observed. “Perhaps that is still an option.”
“Two then,” said Gaspar. “The dak now, too.”
“No,” Abel said.
“All right,” said Gaspar. “Dont now, dak later.”
“No,” Abel said. “All on delivery. I am beginning not to trust my donts. They might up and walk away with you before we’ve completed our business. Perhaps I’ll fetter them properly until we arrive. Get me to the First Oasis and you walk away with both head.”
Gaspar flinched, rubbed his eyes.
Buying some cogitating time, Abel thought.
Wouldn’t you?
Why would I need to? I have you to do my thinking for me.
Not amusing even in jest, lad.
Abel smiled. It wasn’t easy to get Raj’s goat, but he thought he’d just done so.
“You find this humorous?” said Gaspar. “An old man’s dilemma? For how can I trust you?”
Abel shrugged. “You could remain useful. Even after we arrive. That way, I would wish to pay you with the dak in order to make use of your services again.”
“And how might myself or my people be of use a second time? What do you hope to accomplish out here, so far from home, Landsman?”
“I don’t know yet,” Abel replied. At least not the particulars, Abel thought. “What say we ruminate on that very thought along the way? Perhaps one so wise as you can answer it for me.”
Another smile from the Remlap chief. “Agreed.” He spat into the sand, dipped his hand into the spittle and fine reddish-brown dirt, then reached out to shake Abel’s. “Dont now, dak later.” Abel did the same, and they shook dusty hands.
“Now you can just let me go back to the tribe and—”
“Oh, no,” Abel said, standing up, towering over the Remlap chief in the process. “I insist you remain as our guest.” He reached down to help the other man up, and, after a moment’s hesitation, the Remlap chief accepted his assistance. “Besides, I can’t send you back to your people so skinny. We need to fatten you up, if only for our own honor. I know you won’t deny us this. And, you’ll pardon my forwardness, great chief, but from the looks of you that might take a while. A long while.”
Gaspar shook his head, smiled sadly. “Then I will have to impose a bit longer on your hospitality.” He looked around avidly, as if the food would appear instantly.
This man really is hungry, Abel thought. Or else a greedy son of a bitch.
Malnutrition is evident, Center replied. And his people are starving.
The fact that he tried to bargain with you at all is a sign of how tough the old bird is, Raj added.
“If I may be so bold,” said the chief, interrupting Abel’s flow of thoughts. “Since I am now determined to stay to assuage your discomfiture, how long until the noonday meal? I would very much like to start seeing to the maintenance of your honor sooner rather than later.”
“First, the name,” Abel said.
“The nam
e?”
“The Blaskoye,” Abel said. “He with the silver knife. The one who stole your children and raped your women. Then we’ll have a bite to eat. And I promise that bite won’t be you.”
This brought forth the first genuine smile he’d seen from Gaspar.
“Like you, we call him Silver Knife,” said the chief. “But he has a given name. They call him Rostov. Dmitri Rostov.”
* * *
Two rises of the three-day moon, Levot, passed—nine days—as they rode through the Voidlands and into the Highsticks. Gaspar of the Remlaps was a plumper man.
He ought to be, thought Abel. He’s been chewing on something constantly, walking, standing, sitting, except when he’s asleep, and sometimes I swear he manages to chew on something even then.
The Highsticks was the name of the elevated plains on the extreme east of the Redlands. Beyond the Highsticks, all vegetation gradually gave out. Volcanism increased, and the soil became toxic for most forms of life. Beyond that lay the Tables, an unbroken coating of basalt that stretched, according to Center, for thousands of leagues, and was a half-league thick in all places.
There is no way for the Redlanders to cross that area, said Center. The water table has been made completely inaccessible by a magma eruption that occurred three million years ago. There has been no rain there in over one hundred Duisberg years. There are therefore no tanajas or natural cisterns. And the basalt gives way on the east not to another desert and riverine system, but to the Eastern Sea. Thus there is not the slightest possibility for Redland eastward migration. The only population spigot for the Redlanders is the Valley. It has ever been thus, and this is exactly what Zentrum counts on in his Stasis regulation equations.
And the pot is set to boil right about now, Raj said. Over the brim, and down the Valley.
The Highsticks were not the Sulfur Plains or the Tables, however. They were a tough country, but quite habitable for a desert people.
Abel and his company had travelled two hundred leagues. They had completed a half circle of the Redlands, southwest to northeast, always keeping contact with tribes, interior and outlying.
Taking Raj’s advice, Abel arranged the regiment in a left echelon of squads. They were attempting to encircle the enemy’s presumably teardrop-shaped disposition stretching from the west, and the edge of the Valley, to a terminus in the east at Awul-alwaha. The Scouts approached from the southwest. The goal was to keep contact with concentrated forces as well as to survey the tribes who were and those who were not participating in what was looking to be a great gathering of the desert nomads. The purpose of this gathering was all too evident: war on the Valley.
The lead squad sought contact, mostly visual, but not unwilling to give and take fire when they met an armed Blaskoye group. It was for these times that the echelon arrangement came into play, for—as Raj had predicted—the Redlanders, however many there were in an area, would invariably rush all their forces toward the first sound of trouble. This not only pulled them out of areas that squads to the left of the lead squad could then reconnoiter, it also left them entirely open to an unexpected flank attack in wave after wave as the deployed left-echelon squads caught up with the lead and joined the fighting from an easterly direction. Sometimes the Scout reinforcements arrived directly in the Blaskoye’s rear and set the Redlander donts scurrying in all directions, scattering the terrified Redlanders like a puff of wind on an open hand full of grain.
Occasionally, the point squad passed too far to the east of the enemy and another squad would make contact. In these instances, signal mirror contact and flag wigwag became paramount to rein in the forward moving squad. Long experience had made moving yet maintaining sightline contact second nature, and a forward unit would circle back in a variety of spirals, depending on terrain, if signaling were lost for longer than a few minutes.
The engagements took their toll, but produced what were, to Abel, surprisingly few casualties on either side. He had had visions of having to lead a line of wounded, gangrenous men across the barren landscape, and being constantly hampered by his train of wounded. So far, he’d only lost five men from his original ninety, and one of those was a fall from a cliff while dismounted and taking a piss. The body of that one, a Scout named Largo, they’d had to leave where it lay, or risk more casualties retrieving it. The others they’d managed to bury. Their places of rest were duly marked on the map Weldletter was constructing. Their graves were then trampled to obliteration.
These men know cover when they see it, as do the Blaskoye, Raj told him. And since neither of you have conquest in mind, but simply driving the other off, there’s no instinct to go for the throat and destroy the other completely. The time will come when that will change.
Similarly, they killed few Blaskoye, and what wounded they found were usually well enough for interrogation and eventual release. There was no way to keep prisoners, and Abel had no desire to execute those hapless enough to get shot and caught. Besides, releasing a wounded man in a desert was not doing him any favor, however good he might be at living off the land.
Nomad encampments were a bit more tricky, and Abel avoided direct contact with these groups whenever possible, with the regiment dividing itself and quickly flowing around them. It helped that, unlike traveling bands, the families in the camps had a tendency to stay in place long enough to allow him and his men to clear out of the area. But the position of the camp was duly noted on the map and in logging scrolls. Each camp was, as Gaspar said more than once, probably in a traditional spot that would remain constant. Even though Redlanders were always on the move, they tended to congregate in favorite feeding and watering grounds for their measly (by Valley standards) dak herds.
The going was hard, but not so hard as it would have been without a destination in mind—and Abel had a destination in mind he had not shared with his father. He’d also not mentioned it to Raj and Center, but by now it was fairly obvious what his plan was.
Spiral in toward Awul-alwaha, the First Oasis.
* * *
Josiah Weldletter was not a man who was at home in the desert. First of all, he was as overplump as Gaspar had been underfed. And, in a sort of negative reflection of Gaspar, he had steadily reduced in size even while the Redlander was growing larger. Strangely enough, the two men got along well after overcoming the fact that both thought the other a barbarian. For Gaspar, the map was in his head, and had always been. The very idea of a detailed map on a scroll of papyrus had never occurred to him, but the moment that he did understand the idea was a moment of revelation. He couldn’t get enough of Weldletter’s map.
The two would ride ahead, with a guard of three or four Scouts, find a knoll or rise, and together they would fill in the blank places on the developing map. Gaspar showed an uncanny ability to predict what would lie over the next rise, the depth of a declivity, and, after he understood the idea of scale, the altitude of the hill in the distance as expressed in elbs, paces, or fieldmarches. He was particularly excited when Weldletter showed him how contour lines worked. It was as if a flitterdak that had known it had a song within itself suddenly found the voice that had been missing all these years and burst forth with its native call.
For his part, Weldletter had never met someone who truly had a better imagination for the folds of land than he, and for him it was the first time he’d had a conversation with someone he believed to be his equal in this regard. The two became so inseparable that Abel felt the necessity of pulling Weldletter aside and reminding him that, given the chance, Gaspar might gladly cut his throat if it gained his tribe some sort of advantage in the Redlands.
“He would be sorry,” Abel said. “And I believe he might even shed real tears, if he has had enough to drink in the past day or so, but he will go ahead and slit your throat. And then, if he hasn’t eaten in a while—”
“All right, all right, Lieutenant,” Weldletter had answered, cutting Abel off. “You have a great deal of your father in you, particularly the ability t
o put the facts before a person in a visceral manner. I will watch myself.”
“Oh, let’s do better than that,” Abel said. “Let’s show him everything. Maps he never dreamed of, even.”
“What do you mean?”
And Abel told him.
* * *
So it was Weldletter and Gaspar and their retinue of porters, aides, and guarding outriders who first found the nishterlaub execution site.
By the time that Abel rode up, this group had descended into the small valley where the executions had taken place and had disturbed some of the remains. But when he crested the hill above, Abel got a good view of the tableau.
There were dozens of men staked out with their backs down and their faces and bellies up to the sun, naked, their arms and legs tied to hold them in that position. They were bent over what looked like metal arches. The metal itself was brown and rusted, but it was strong enough to hold them up exposed to the sun.
They have been tied to the roofs of ground cars, said Center. These groundcars were, at one time, electrostatically powered vehicles that your ancestors used pre-Collapse to journey into the planetary wastelands. There were many dwellings in what you now know as the Redlands. People used the area as a recreational getaway and journeyed from the Valley on holidays. As you see now, the ground cars have become little more than clumps of rust preserved these three thousand years only by a process of something like petrification, with the sand filling their declivities to the point that they are almost sedimentary rock now instead of metal.
How long ago was the execution? Abel thought.
