by John Ringo
He opened his eyes and looked into eyes of china blue, at which the ensign across from him flushed.
“Penny for your thoughts, Ensign,” Herzer said with a faint smile.
She flushed again and looked away for a moment, then looked back with a slight frown creasing her brow.
“I… I was wondering, sir. Where did you lose your hand?” she asked.
Herzer looked over at the general who looked back with a faint quirked eyebrow and shrugged.
“If we were still at the Academy, I’d tell you to do a research paper,” Herzer said with a faint smile. “Since we’re not, and it’s a long drive to the coast…” He frowned and looked at the ceiling for a moment, then grimaced.
“Raven’s Mill was attacked in the autumn of the year of the Fall,” Herzer said. “At that time there were only fifty-seven Blood Lords and forty fully trained archers. I was in the first Blood Lord class.” He pulled back his left sleeve and turned up his forearm, to reveal the brand on the underside. It was a wing-spread eagle, mouth wide in a scream of challenge, with the words “Semper Fi” under it. There was a puckered wound right across it, with others lacing the arm.
“Thirty-eight,” Destrang said, nodding and pulling back his own sleeve. The brand was the same but with a “38” above it. The other two ensigns nodded and turned their own up. None of them had other scars, however.
“We didn’t have a class number,” Herzer said dryly. “And most of the roads you march on, we built. Anyone eat the lemon?”
“No, sir,” Van Krief replied. “The last couple of classes had had such a scuffle for it that they’ve outlawed it.”
“Pity,” Herzer said with a grin. “My suggestion was that they simply fall the class out, oh, about ten klicks out from the clearing and let them race for it. Anyway, at the time no one in the class, including Gunny Rutherford, knew what the lemon represented or who was buried there. I trust you all know?”
“Yes, sir!” they responded.
“Anyway, there was this big army, mostly Changed, on the way, led by a consummate motherfisker named Dionys McCanoc, pardon my language, Ensign.”
“Not a problem, sir,” she said, coloring and smiling.
“Dionys…” He paused and looked at the general again. “Dionys had a personal grudge attached to the attack, but that’s not important.”
“And the opposite,” Edmund interjected. “You saw the young boy with my wife?”
“Yes, sir,” Tao said. “Your son?”
“Dionys’.” The general smiled, thinly. “The act was nonconsensual.” He raised a hand to forestall the terrified ensign’s apology. “I don’t mind having Charles called my son; he’s a fine young man. But he is not the son of my body. So, you can safely say that I was not particularly pleased with McCanoc. We had a history from before the Fall as well. Nothing particularly important to the story. Go on, Herzer.”
Herzer paused and then shrugged. “There’s more to the story. I was present at the rape of Mistress Daneh. Rather, I was unable to prevent it so I ran away.” He looked at the ensign across from him whose eyes widened as she paled. “It’s not always the best course to be stupidly heroic. It would be nice if the world was that simple and since then it has been, by and large. But we are not all that we seem and it’s worth keeping in mind.
“As I was saying,” he continued, looking out the window. “Dionys was coming with blood in his eye. We were outnumbered ten to one. What would you do in that instance, Ensign Destrang?”
“Leave enough of a force in the town to possibly hold and then maneuver a force so that he could not attack the town without it sallying at his rear.”
“The problem being that he could hit the town and overrun it before the force outside could have done anything,” Herzer said. “The general went for the deep hook, instead, moving out of the town, leaving it defended only by the militia, and dangling the Blood Lords and the archers out as bait.” He remembered those fights like they were yesterday, almost his first introduction to battle. Friends dying around him, the feel of life being let out by his sword. “We… attrited the force with small damage to ourselves by luring it, repeatedly, into defensive positions.”
“Operationally offensive, tactically defensive, sir,” Van Krief said. She had apparently gotten over her shock.
“Precisely,” Herzer said. “Then we outmarched the army back to the town and met it at the Bellevue grade, with a clear line of retreat to secondary positions if we needed them. We held them, though.” He paused again, flexing his jaw. “We held them and beat them into a bloody pulp. No matter how many attacked, they couldn’t break the Line. Finally, they broke. Then Dionys attacked, alone.”
“Alone, sir?” Tao said. “Wasn’t that suicide?”
“Not if you’re protected by powered and field-protected plate armor,” Edmund replied, dryly. “Normally it’s a recipe for a massacre. And suicide to attack the person.”
“So… I committed suicide,” Herzer said, with a faint smile. He was still looking out the window. “And his power-sword went right through my shield like it was paper and took off my hand.”
“Dionys was also protected by a nannite cloud that drew its energy from the humans around it,” Edmund said, looking at his protŽgŽ with a querying expression. “Herzer still kept attacking, with a knife, trying to get something into the armor, until he was overcome by the field.”
“I wasn’t the only one,” Herzer smiled. “Bast, hell even Azure, Rachel’s house lion, got into the act.”
“I assume that someone killed him, sir,” Destrang said when Herzer was clearly done.
“Oh, yes,” Herzer smiled, looking at the young man. “Duke Edmund. Well, not killed, paralyzed.”
“You, sir?” Van Krief asked. “How?”
“Young lady, before the Fall I was, in all modesty, the finest medieval armor and weapons replica maker on earth,” Edmund said, smiling at her. “It would have been silly indeed for me not to have weapons and armor that could overcome anything Dionys, or that ham-handed hack Fukyama, could come up with. I made better stuff than that when I was your age.” He chuckled and shook his head, looking out the window.
“So that’s the story of how I lost my hand,” Herzer said, holding the prosthetic up and flexing it. “And afterwards, Duke Edmund, who as he has so humbly noted is something of a smith, made this for me. It slices, dices and makes julienne fries. Also useful for properly marking papers.” He made a shredding motion, exposing the sharpened hooks within the prosthetic. “Practically invulnerable to corrosion as well. Thanks so much.”
“You’re welcome,” Edmund replied.
“Not particularly heroic,” Herzer continued, “all I did was slow the bastard down for a half a minute or so. Bast slowed him down even longer.”
“And who is Bast?” Destrang said. “Other than an Egyptian cat-goddess.”
“I’d almost forgotten that.” Herzer laughed.
“Bast is Herzer’s girlfriend,” Edmund said. “One of them, anyway.”
“Excuse me,” Herzer replied, miffed. “With all due respect, General, sir, she was your girlfriend long before she was mine.”
“Your girlfriend is the duke’s age?” Ensign Van Krief blurted.
“Oh, much older,” the duke replied. “We old folk can get pretty spry, young lady.”
“Sir, I didn’t mean…” the ensign replied, flustered.
“I know you didn’t,” Edmund grinned. “That’s the problem with being a boss, you have to be careful what you joke about. That was a joke.”
“Yes, sir,” Van Krief said, smiling. “Sorry.”
“Bast is an elf,” Herzer said. “Actually, what she calls a wood elf. She was created during the AI wars. And, yes, we sometimes share a bed.”
“Or a patch of moss,” Edmund said. “Or a rock. Or standing up. Or in the water…”
“Milord Duke,” Herzer said, sweetly. “You recall what you just said about being the boss? And at the moment, you’re not
wearing your magic armor so if you’d like to make it to the fleet base in one piece…”
“I don’t care how big you are,” Edmund replied, smiling and looking out the window. “Age and treachery beats youth and innocence all the time.”
“Sure, boss, but you’ve been training me in treachery for the last four years,” Herzer pointed out, reasonably. “So as I was saying about Bast. Bast is Bast. She’s incredibly beautiful, incredibly uncaring about appearances, irreverent, funny and the most deadly individual I know. I’ve seen her gut orcs, ixchitl and orcas with equal ease. She’s the best bowman I know, as well, and the best dancer. She flies a dragon as if she was born on one and flies them bareback, which is no joke let me tell you. She’s a couple of thousand years old and looks, and sometimes acts, fourteen. I’m honored to occasionally share her bed. Or, as Duke Edmund put it, a patch of moss, a beach, a rock, whatever.”
“Oh,” Van Krief said, looking thoughtful.
“She’s also been gone for a year or more,” Herzer continued. “And she might turn up in another year, or a decade, expecting that we’ll take up where we left off as if she had never been gone. Or she might be standing by the side of the road on the way to the conference, expecting to hitch a ride. Sometimes I expect her at any moment. Like… now,” he ended sadly.
“God, I hope not,” Edmund muttered.
“As I said,” Herzer said with a grin. “She’s often quite irreverent. I’m sure she would scandalize the admirals.”
“I’m thinking of the admirals’ wives,” Edmund muttered again, looking out the window with a pained expression.
“Are you… monogamous, sir?” Destrang asked, clearly not looking at the ensign at his side.
“No,” Herzer replied. “I don’t know if Bast is when she’s gone or not, I wouldn’t bet one way or the other. I certainly don’t expect her to be and I’m not even when she’s around. Nor does she encourage me to be or even discourage other liaisons. She’s… incredibly open about sex and as uninterested in conventions about it as she is in all the rest of the rules she breaks.” He grinned and shrugged. “The term ‘drunkard’s dream’ comes to mind.”
“Sounds like it,” Tao said.
“Mine,” Herzer replied with a grin. “Or not. Bast is entirely Bast’s. As she has said before, she will still be young when I die of old age, assuming I last that long. But if you ever meet her, don’t think that you’ll woo her. She walks in and points and crooks a finger. She’s quite immune to charm, dislikes it in fact.”
“I’ve met elves,” Van Krief said, suddenly. “She doesn’t sound like any elf I’ve met.”
“She’s not a high elf,” Edmund replied. “Which is who you have met before. I’m not sure there are any other wood elves besides Bast. She might even have been a one off, rather than a production model.”
“You make it sound as if she was made in a factory,” Tao said. “I thought the elves were a Change race, like the mer.”
“An assumption that, if you ever make it in one’s hearing, will get you a very cold shoulder indeed,” Duke Edmund replied, seriously. “The elves are a race of created super-warriors. They were made by the North American Union when it was facing a series of small, ugly wars, in the days leading up to Consolidation. It was discovered in the early twenty-first century that humans produce an internal sedative in response to stress. The best of the warriors of Norau had limited uptake of the sedative. Since they didn’t panicÑor succumb to post-stress syndromeÑboth of which could lead to unpleasantness and atrocities in combatÑthe elves were created with enhanced production.” He grinned faintly and looked out the window. “But they’re not Changed. They’re not even vaguely human, for all they look that way.”
“If the elves ever got a case of the ass,” Herzer warned, “humans would be extinct in short order. And if you ever piss one off, personally, cut your own throat. It’ll be quicker and far more pleasant.”
“That explains the elves I met,” Van Krief said, her eyes glazing a bit at the memory. “They were so… calm. Delightfully calm.”
“Drugged to the gills,” Herzer said, chuckling. “But, yes, they are intelligent and beautiful and delightfully calm.”
“Sir,” Destrang said, greatly daring. “Charles… he had…”
“Pointed ears,” Edmund said, nodding. “Dionys had pushed the protocols as far as he could to add elven enhancements. Further, really. He was protected and aided, although we didn’t know it at the time, by Marshal Chansa, then one of Paul’s faction on the Council and now the head of the Ropasan armed forces.”
“The one time I saw an elf pissed was at McCanoc,” Herzer said. “That was before the Fall. I don’t know what happened to him after, though?”
“Had to be Gothoriel,” Edmund said. “he was the Rider of the Eastern Reach, basically the guy that the Lady left out in this area of Norau to make sure we weren’t getting up to too much mischief. He got cut off by the Fall when the Lady closed Elfheim. I haven’t seen him, but Bast said she had.”
“Elfheim, General?” Tao said. “I’m starting to get one of my headaches.”
“Too much for you, Ensign?” Edmund said with a grin. “Elfheim is an artificial dimension that the elves opened when they decided that living in the world was just too dangerous all around. Humans never really took to elves very well, and vice versa. Too many differences. Things that enrage humans the elves care less about and things that enrage elves humans tend to be able to ignore. The Lady withdrew and so did the majority of the elves. There’s no proscription, though, they can come and go, at least they could until the recent unpleasantness. Then the Lady turned off the portals to Elfheim and stated that there would be no transfer in either direction. This cut off her eyes among the humans, as well.”
“Are they on our side, sir?” Tao asked.
“No, son, they’re not,” Edmund said. “But they’re not on the side of New Destiny, either. I’m not really sure I want them on our side; they’re too likely to do things for reasons I don’t understand. But I know I don’t want them fighting for New Destiny. Can’t imagine they would. But if New Destiny wins, if they manage to capture all the power systems and take over the world, you can bet they’ll try to take the Lady on. That will be a battle to watch. Of course, at that point we’ll all be dead or Changed.”
Chapter Four
They traveled for two days in the stuffy confines of the coach, changing horses at regular intervals and stopping not even to rest, traveling at night by the light of coach lanterns. Halfway through the first day they left the Via and started on the road to Newfell to the south. This was a road made since the Fall, for all it was on an ancient roadbed, and it was dreadful in comparison; rutted, filled with potholes and barely touched with gravel where it wasn’t pure dirt.
Conversation had languished after the first burst, the ensigns perhaps a bit surprised at their temerity. Edmund got from them that they came from almost equilateral points in the UFS. Tao was from the plains far to the west, Destrang hailed from the northeast coast and Van Krief was from the coast of the gulf to the southwest.
“We lived on a spring-fed river that led to the Gulf,” she said, looking out the window. “When the Fall came my dad was diving someplace, you know, you never know where. And then he was gone.”
“I’m sorry,” Herzer had said, looking anywhere but at the young ensign.
“We survived,” she said, shrugging. “There were fish and orange trees. Alligator is pretty tasty. We got by. Mom’s still down there. What about your parents, sir?”
“I don’t know where they were,” Herzer said, his tone hard, then he shrugged. “We hadn’t seen each other since a few years before the Fall. My messages…” He paused and shrugged. “We weren’t close,” he said, more or less closing off the conversation.
Finally, after what seemed an interminable journey, they pulled to a stop at a guard shack and at a word from Edmund were waved through. It was the deep of the night but the Navy base seemed barely
affected; personnel, carts and material were moving in a constant stream from one area to another. The road they were on was lit by lanterns every dozen yards or so and there were more over the doors of the buildings so the scene was relatively well lit.
They pulled into the portico of what looked like a large house and Edmund opened his door, stepping down to the lantern-lit entry-walk.
“This is the VIP guest house,” Edmund said. “Herzer and I will be staying here. The rest of you will be at the BOQ, which is just down the road. As soon as I can find somebody to help us with our gear, you’re for there. I want you here no more than an hour after dawn, which is only a couple of hours. So the faster you get some sleep the better. But you need to be here in dress uniform and cleaned up, so figure that into your schedule.”
While he had been talking, Herzer walked to the glass-fronted doors and tried to open them, finding them locked. At that he pounded with his fist on the wood, glancing through the spaces in the frosting on the windows.
“Charge of quarter’s asleep,” Herzer said over his shoulder.
“I would be too,” Edmund said, stretching. “I’m getting too damned old for this, Herzer.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a young seaman said, looking at the captain revealed in the light. “If you go waking up the admirals they’re going to be something pissed.”
“Listen you little shit-for-brains,” Herzer growled, using his hook to pick up the much smaller sailor by his collar. “If you don’t get down there and help General Talbot with his luggage, I’m going to be something pissed. And you really don’t want to see me pissed!”
“Yes, sir!” the sailor gurgled as Herzer lowered him to the ground.
“Get a detail,” Edmund corrected. “We’ve got a lot of stuff.”
