Terrible Swift Sword

by William R. Forstchen

  At times of the Moon Feast the trading of words of anger was all too common. Dozens of the Horde would be dead before the night was finished as long simmering passions, inflamed by the surfeit of food and strong drink, finally exploded. Come the aching heads of morning, such arguments, more often than not, would be put aside or forgiven, but when it came to the anger of the Qar Qarth it was wise to avoid one in disfavor until his fate was decided.

  Passing through the ring of the silent ones he walked into the darkness, back up the slope to where he had watched the rising of the moons. The hoarse cries of laughter, the rising songs of the chants, drifted out to him. Looking back down on the vast plain, the steppe was awash with light to the far horizon, the ceremonial bonfires to greet the rising of Ulma Karzorm now serving as the roasting pits of cattle, their speared bodies turning on the spits.

  He could feel the coiling power of his people, the Horde that for hundreds of generations had ridden the world, rejoicing as they had down through the ages at the moon feasting of the spring grass, the marking of the time of the ride. There was but one moment that surpassed this, the day of the first moon feast before Barkth Nom, when all of the peoples gathered together at the foot of the mountain standing as one host, torches in hand, chanting the songs of praise onto the ancestors who dwelled on high, singing words of strength to the yet unnamed males who on that night would ascend the mountain lor the first time. He shivered inwardly at the memory of it: gaining the high place and looking back at the ocean of light below, each torch marking a soul, the combined light as bright as day, their voices rising like thunder to the high places.

  He sensed that power now, looking out across the steppe. Tomorrow twenty-five umens, two of them Tugar, would turn northwest, followed three days later by seven more who would ride straight north through the hills. Two umens were already across the narrows, having crossed over during the last month, and would move to harass the Roum. The remaining five would stand as a reserve, kept back in case the Bantag decided after all to double back on their march and harry them from the rear.

  It would work, it had to work, for there was no alternative. If the march north and east was blocked hut for a season, starvation would be staring at them by autumn. For that matter there was always the chance that the Bantag would shift north after all, cutting in front of their march a year further on. They had to break through, smashing all the way to Roum by fall, and then quickly move eastward for two seasons' march by the year afterward.

  "His anger will cool, shield-bearer, it was merely the power of the drink."

  Tamuka whirled around, nervous that someone had been able to approach him without being heard.

  "It is a curious rank, your shield-bearer," Muzta Qar Qarth said, coming up to stand by Tamuka's side, a thin smile lighting his features at having caught him unaware.

  Tamuka said nothing but bowed low, even though this was the Qar Qarth of the disgraced Tugar Horde.

  "As I look back upon the things that were, I see a use for such as you, though if one had told me five seasons back that I would have need of someone who could speak to me, and I would be forced to listen, I would have laughed."

  Muzta shook his head, looking down at his boots, kicking them absently through the grass.

  "I did have one such as you—a warrior, though." He paused, a sad smile lighting his graying face.

  "Qubata," he whispered. "He tried to tell me in the end, but I would not hear."

  "His name was known even in our yurts," Tamuka said politely.

  "From the moment he first heard of these Yankees, some inner voice seemed to warn him of what they might do. He tried to tell me of that . . ." he said, his voice trailing off, "but I would not listen . . ."

  Tamuka said nothing.

  "If I had heeded his words then, the Horde of the Tugars would still live in its power."

  "And his words were?"

  "I think in the end he believed that we should simply leave them, to go elsewhere, to make our strength stronger and wait for another day. To come perhaps even to an agreement."

  "To make peace? That is what the hero of Orki counseled?" Tamuka asked, a note of sarcasm in his voice.

  "Yes, the planner of victory at Orki," Muzta said, looking over at the shield-bearer.

  "I was there," Tamuka replied. "Not old enough to draw a bow, but I was there."

  "Your sire?"

  "Killed in the stand of Qarth Barg, commander of the Yushin Umen."

  "The Yushin, they fought well," Muzta replied,

  "Not one of them lived, Tugar," Tamuka said, his voice cold. "I remember the calling of their death songs as they held the pass of Orki, drowned beneath your river of arrows. Ah yes, Qar Qarth, I still remember that moment."

  "You still hate us for that," Muzta said, "though it was you who saved the council of the three Qar Qarths. And yet now I hear hatred in your voice."

  "I hate the cattle more," Tamuka said. "My sire, all of the Yushin Umen now ride the everlasting sky. They died well, though I can hate you for that. But those who died against cattle? How will they ride, how will they sing of their death? First the cattle corrupted us, and now they slay us."

  "How many Merki have they slain so far?" Muzta asked. "Five hundred, a thousand at most in last autumn's campaign and during this winter. I lost seventeen umens, a hundred and seventy thousand of my warriors. If anyone has the right to hate them, it is I."

  Muzta paused, his features impassive as he looked at Tamuka.

  "Though I forget, of course, the cattle also slew all the other heirs."

  Tamuka looked into Muzta's eyes. Did he suspect? Were the quiet rumors about Vuka known even in the Tugar camp?

  "I do not sense the hatred you should have for them," Tamuka said, deciding to shift the topic away from the death of the Zan Qarth's brothers.

  "Oh, I hate them. I had promised myself long before that there would be a day when Keane would be my guest for the moon feast."

  "But?"

  Muzta shook his head and smiled.

  "He is as good as any commander of the Orkons or of your Vushka Hush. That was my biggest mistake. I underestimated him and those who followed him. For after all, I had said to myself, they are only cattle. You saw that yourself, in that fiasco of last year: in less than forty days they built a fleet to match ours, they deceived you and your cattle Cromwell when victory was actually in your hands. Keane outfought my own Qubata, and do not forget that it was Qubata who once outfought you and your entire horde, though we stood outnumbered two to one."

  "Why are you telling me this?" Tamuka asked. "I am but the shield-bearer to the Zen Qarth. Speak these words to Jubadi, to his commanders of the umens and to the commanders of ten umens."

  Muzta smiled.

  "Would they listen to a Tugar, to the leader of a people in disgrace for having lost to cattle?"

  Muzta shook his head, laughing softly as he looked up to the great wheel that stood high in the night sky.

  "There are times I still cannot believe it, that I lead my people thus to disaster, that I am now reduced to leading but two umens under the banner of your people, begging thus for a scrap of protection while the yurts of my clans are fifteen hundred miles away, defenseless, and hostage for our behavior."

  Muzta stepped away from Tamuka, his gaze sweeping the vast assemblage, which resounded with the shouts of celebration, the cries of dying cattle, the song chants of the singers, the deep rumbling strength of the Merki Horde.

  "They'll change you the way they changed us," Muzta said coldly. "When I was born into the yurt of my father the bow was placed in my hand—the first thing I grasped before clutching at the teat of my mother. When my one surviving son sires his firstborn, what shall be placed in his hand?

  "Shall it be the tools of the cattle, the weapons they force upon us, the shrouds of the ships that fly the air, the hammer that beats at the forge, the rails of iron that their fire-breathing dragons ride upon?

  "All these things the cattle fo
rce us to take if we are to survive," Muzta said quietly.

  "That is why I say we must kill them all," Tamuka replied sharply, an edge of hard passion in his voice. "In order to save what we are, in the end we will have to destroy them. We will have to learn all that they know, smash them down, and then destroy any memory of cattle and their devices. Only then may we again wander the steppe as is our right."

  Muzta shook his head, laughing.

  "And who will feed us? We ride fat and bloated, we arrive at their cities in the autumn knowing that all that we shall need will be provided by them. And when they are gone?"

  "We will again be the Hordes, with this world wiped clean. We will learn new ways, without the vermin of cattle who threaten to destroy us. We will learn to create our own food. There will never be peace between us. Jubadi is wrong to believe that we can simply defeat them here and then all will be as it was."

  Angry with himself for having voiced a direct opposition to his Qar Qarth in the presence of one outside the Merki, he turned away with an angry growl.

  "If I mentioned that you spoke these words to me," Muzta said quietly, "you would die. For if one of my trusted advisors did such to me I would cut him down with my own blade." "Then do it," Tamuka snapped, not bothering to look back.

  "It is safe with me, shield-bearer," Muzta whispered.

  Tamuka knew he should offer thanks, for after all the Qar Qarth of another horde at this moment held his life in his hands.

  "And your Zan Qarth Vuka, would he ever listen to your words?"

  Tamuka looked back.

  "Do not expect to bribe me with my life, Tugar."

  Muzta smiled.

  "There is no intent. Your life is yours, I have no desire to hold it."

  Tamuka nodded finally.

  "Is your Zan Qarth ready to lead if Jubadi should fall now?" Muzta asked quietly, as if speaking to himself. "You might believe your Jubadi to be wrong when it comes to the question of how to manage the cattle when the war is won. But neither you nor I may deny that he is a worthy warrior. Overconfident, yes, against these Yankees, but capable. But your Zan Qarth?"

  Vuka as Qar Qarth? It was what he had trained a lifetime for, picked above all others to stand at the side of the next leader of the Horde. Vuka was useless. He would rush in headlong, the same as he did in the streets of Roum, the same as this Tugar did. There would be no such art as Jubadi was using.

  And he was the murderer, of his own flesh, of that he was certain.

  "He will be ready," Tamuka replied, his voice cold.

  "But of course." And Muzta smiled, his teeth glistening red in the moonlight.

  "I must return to the tents of my warriors," Muzta said. "It will be a long ride tomorrow."

  Tamuka bowed low as the Qar Qarth turned, his cattle-hide cloak rustling in the night air, sending up a swirling scent of flowers and fresh spring grass.

  A light mist was starting to rise, casting a ghostly shadow as Muzta disappeared into the night.

  Drawing yet farther away from the great yurt of Jubadi, Tamuka drifted into the night, the mist rising up out of the ground and embracing him with chilly hands.

  Settling down on the ground he stretched out, letting the fog wrap around him. It glowed faintly from the twin moons drifting opaquely through the night sky.

  His breath started to come in short staccato bursts, faster and yet faster, a continual motion of drawing in and rapid exhaling. A gradual tingling started at his finger tips, coiling up through his arms, knotting into his chest, and then ever so gently his gaze lost its focus. His breath came at longer and yet longer intervals, until it seemed as if he were already dead.

  He could feel his tu, the spirit of the shield-bearer, stirring within, ready to leap forth, to rise into the night sky, to seek the voices of the ancestors, and he followed it outward, so that the vast and rolling steppes seemed to race beneath his soul.

  Faces drifted before him, his sire laughing with the joy of battle in his fiery eyes, and he felt that joy. And there was Yourga, his master of the hidden paths, whispering to him to turn away from his ka, the spirit of the warrior, and to delve instead into the soul of tu, that of the shield-bearer.

  Do not be driven by the ka, let it pass beyond your heart, beyond your soul, be Merki and yet be not, he warrior and yet be guide to the warrior ka, the spirit of the Horde, for it is thus that all of us shall survive.

  And even as he wandered he chanted the hidden words of the tu, but the ka called. A host galloped past, warrior souls racing across the midnight sky hearing the voices of those who still rode upon the endless sea of grass. He could see them as well, the vast spread of the Horde, on this the eve of spring riding and of war.

  Spirits raced past him, through him, riding the everlasting ride of the everlasting sky. And yet he could see others moving closer and yet closer, moving in, spreading outward, hedging about them.

  The spirit-riders turned, drawing back, their shouts of triumph stilled.

  Cattle stood upon the horizon, waiting, cold gleams of hate in their eyes.

  Could they come thus even here? Tamuka wondered. In the end would cattle cross even through the gates of fire to the very realms of the everlasting sky?

  Yet surely it could be so. For when Merki cast down Tugar upon the grassy sea below, then was it not so that, in the everlasting sky above, Merki would then drive Tugar? How else could it be, for were not all things but reflections of others, the victory granted in one place strengthening the spirits above? The strength of the spirits in turn giving power to the ka of those below?

  The spirit-riders turned, gazing upon him as if he were somehow responsible for this abomination. The voice of his father, of all the Yushin Umen who had died in glory, as noble as any might wish, all of them were silent, their gazes intent upon the northern horizon.

  He thought for a moment of his pet, wondering, knowing. That alone was his design, known by no other. That had been a masterful bending, a training without the cattle pet even being aware, sending him forth yet inwardly knowing what he would do. At least in that was the hidden plan within the plan.

  His ka now realized all which would have to be done, even as the spirit of the shield-bearer, the very power which allowed him thus to travel without form, to learn the inner knowledges, rebelled. And he watched in silence as Yourga, the master of the white clan, master of all who had trained beneath him as shield-bearers, wept.

  Yuri stirred uncomfortably in his sleep. Again the dream, the nightmare returning. Half-awake for a moment, his composure dropped and the tears filled his eyes, clouding the light of the moon showing through the window of his room. It was called his home, yet it was a prison nevertheless. Still, it was a place where he was safe from those who would kill him out of hand, the outcast, the flesh-eater, the pet, the one despised. They allowed him a semblance of freedom, yet there were always the guards, passing the lazy days in a village far beyond Novrod, where none knew him. Yet always they were with him, watching him.

  Keane. He was almost awake as the thought formed. Keane must know why he was here. Keane had sent him here, saying it was to protect him, to keep him alive. Alive for what?

  He blinked the tears away. Keane knew, Tamuka knew as well; he could feel their voices inside of him. Both were playing out some mystery, and he was in the middle. Were his actions now his own, or was he the illusion of someone else's designs?

  Tomorrow would be like the day before. Like all the days before, except for those rare moments when, late in the evening, he would be taken to one of their machines that rode on iron rails, to visit Keane and talk. And then he would be brought back here, alone. He wanted for nothing. Yet he wanted for everything.

  He closed his eyes, sleep drifting back gently, softly. Again, as consciousness fell away, the inner calling stirred through his dreams.

  Chapter 3

  Choking with laughter, Andrew wiped the tears from his eyes.

  "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is
the east, and Juliet, bejesus, is the sun."

  Pat, engaged in a dramatic piece of overacting, delivered the lines in his thickest brogue, convulsing the Yankees in the audience with gales of laughter. As he stumbled through several of his lines the audience cheered him on, prompting him when needed.

  "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"

  Bob Fletcher appeared on the balcony, dressed as a Rus peasant girl, wearing a horsehair wig that came down to his knees. The Rus and Yankee audience exploded with laughter and Bob gave a cheerful wave, blowing kisses, while Pat, with one knee bent, looking up imploringly, hands clasped together.

  Romeo and Juliet was a favorite with the Rus, and though the words were being delivered in English, so conversant were they with the famed scene that more than one shouted the words in unison in their own tongue.

  Reaching the climax of the scene, Pat scrambled up a conveniently placed ladder to plant the legendary kiss. He closed his eyes, leaning forward, and

  Bob turned around, presented his more than ample backside, and the scene blacked out.

  The theater was rocked with hysterical laughter.

  "Mixing Chaucer with Shakespeare," Kathleen said, holding her sides.

  "Thank God Pat and a couple of other boys had copies of Shakespeare in their gear," Emil said, between gasps of laughter.

  The earthier humor certainly would not have played to a mixed audience back home, even though outrageous parodies of Shakespeare were all the rage there, but the Rus obviously loved it, calling for several encores before the next act appeared.

  The next scene was far more serious, a vignette from Macbeth played by several Rus actors, the main character now portrayed as a mad boyar, the audience sitting spellbound at his death scene, applauding wildly when his body was dragged off. Macbeth, played by the young Gregory, who had survived his now legendary ride to deliver the news of Andrew's planned return from Roum, appeared for a curtain call.

  "That boy could be another Edwin Booth someday," Kathleen said approvingly. "Did you ever see him play?"