"Hulagar!"
"My Qarth."
The mud-spattered shield-bearer drew up beside him.
"It's empty! They're gone, they're truly gone!"
Hulagar nodded without comment.
He paused for a moment, looking off to his left at the thick trees pressing down on the road. Something prickled his senses. Some vague foreboding, the tu sight whispering.
Look, look outward, do it now.
Hulagar looked back at the huge banner fluttering before the bridge, and his thoughts focused on it instead.
Before the city of Suzdal, set between two poles, floated the mourning banner, the black flag with the red eye of Bugghaal, the banner flown only when a Qar Qarth was dead.
"How did they know?" Jubadi whispered, trying not to show his fear. All around him were shouts of alarm, as the warriors came out of the pass and saw the banner for the first time.
Jubadi knew he must not show fear, yet his heart was pounding in his throat.
"How did they know?"
"Pets know these things," Hulagar whispered, suspicions boiling over. Again there was that vague sense, and he looked back toward the woods.
"And they are gone," Jubadi whispered.
What now? He had thought this would be the climax, that it would be decided here. He had thought that at this moment he would ride into the buildings in which their miracles had been made and claim them for his own.
"The factory buildings?"
"Empty of everything," the messenger said, his voice trembling. "Everything is gone—their machines, the machines that made machines—everything gone except for the empty buildings."
"They're gone, aren't they?"
Jubadi looked over his shoulder and saw Tamuka edging up, Vuka beside him.
Somehow the sight of Tamuka filled him with a cold rage. He struggled to control it. The shield-bearer had been right, his tu had told him. Jubadi felt a trembling inside. If Tamuka said the wrong thing now, his head would be in the mud.
"I am sorry, my Qar Qarth," Tamuka said, no trace of emotion in his voice.
"The cowardly bastards!" Vuka snarled. "To abandon their yurts without a fight! They are beneath contempt."
"Remember you are fighting cattle," Tamuka replied.
Muzta, followed by his son and half a dozen staff, came up to join the group.
He reined in and looked at the high hills of the pass rising up to his left.
"They fought hard for this position—it's where we almost cornered them. A good fighting withdraw on Keane's part."
"It sounds as if you almost admire this cattle!" Vuka snapped.
"In a way I do," Muzta replied. "He beat me, and now it appears as if he's escaped you."
"Not for long!" Vuka roared, looking back at Muzta.
There was a cold moment of tension between the two.
"You'd like to kill me, wouldn't you?" Muzta said quietly.
"Do not taunt me now, Tugar," Vuka said coldly.
"And if I do?"
Hulagar edged his mount between the two.
"The enemy is over there!" Hulagar snapped, pointing toward the east.
"But of course," Muzta replied with a smile.
Throughout the exchange Jubadi had sat in silence, looking at the banner floating lazily between the two
poles, fluttering in the early evening breeze. He took off his lacquered helmet for a moment to wipe his brow.
How could they possibly know? He thanked his ancestors that Sarg was not here. The old shaman most likely would have fallen to the ground in convulsions, a bad thing for morale.
He realized that the group around him was silent, waiting.
"They cannot run forever," Jubadi finally announced. "They are not like the wanderers. Their machines burden them down, they are tied to their roads of iron."
He looked over at Muzta.
"Where did they run to?"
Muzta leaned over to one of his chant-singers, who marked the Path of the Everlasting Ride and spoke in whispered tones. Then he looked back at Muzta.
"The land is flat, fertile, the soil black from here for thirty days' march by yurt. The land between is narrow, only ten yurt marches across between the forest and the sea. The land of the Rus ends in a ridge of hills, drawn as if in a line, moving from the forest to the sea. Two yurt marches is the distance there."
"Thirty days, six for an umen," Hulagar said.
"If they've stripped everything," Tamuka ventured, "four or five umens might advance, but all of them . . . ? And what of the Horde itself, what will they eat?"
"Not another word!" Jubadi snapped, looking back at Tamuka, the threat in his voice all too evident.
Hulagar moved away from his Qarth and drew up alongside of Tamuka.
"If you value your life at this moment," he whispered, "turn away."
Tamuka looked over coldly at Jubadi and, bowing, he backed up his mount and moved to the side of the road, Hulagar following.
"I tried to warn him," Tamuka hissed when they were no longer in hearing of the Qar Qarth.
"You are a shield-bearer, not a Qarth or a war advisor," Hulagar retorted, grabbing Tamuka by the shoulder. "Your responsibility is to be the tu for Vuka. You overstepped yourself when you spoke before the Qarths and he suffered you to speak, for at that moment it was better coming from you than from him. But by all the ancestors, Tamuka, he is still my Qar Qarth, and yours. You have lost sight of your place."
"It is a new world," Tamuka replied. "He does not see that. Down deep he is still too confident, he still feels that this is no great threat. I know better."
"Would you be Qar Qarth?" Hulagar asked sarcastically.
"Yes!" Tamuka hissed.
Hulagar drew back in horror.
"I did not hear those words," Hulagar whispered. "By all rights I should strike you down."
Tamuka looked at him defiantly.
"He knows that the heir murdered his own brother. He does not see the hidden threat of these cattle. He is not ruling, Hulagar, and I say that under the protection of my office."
"You would use that to hide behind," Hulagar retorted. "He is my Qar Qarth and my friend, and he has done well."
"That is your problem, Hulagar Shield-Bearer, you have allowed your charge to become your friend."
Hulagar said nothing, for there was no sense in denying what was true.
"Yet still he rules well."
Tamuka said nothing.
Hulagar looked back over his shoulder toward Jubadi, who was waiting.
"You shall be removed as shield-bearer to the Zan Qarth," he said coldly.
Tamuka chuckled softly.
"And who shall ride by Vuka to protect him from himself?"
"There is always another."
Tamuka cursed inwardly at his impetuousness. So it was finished. Without comment he fell in behind Vuka, who looked over at him. Though he had not heard the confrontation between the two shield-bearers, he could sense that Tamuka had lost something in it, and he smiled at his discomfort.
"We throw ten umens forward at once. The rest will follow within three days," Jubadi said. "We will still have our supper of Rus flesh. The cloud-flyers will sail eastward, to find out where they hide and mark them for our advance. We will leave the Car-tha cattle here, to scour the fields, to work the land behind us and bring forth something by the time our yurts come up. They have run from us, but we will strike them yet."
He looked back at the banner still fluttering in the breeze. Again he was filled with foreboding, and looked over to Hulagar as if seeking advice.
"The new Qar Qarth is the one who burns the banner of mourning," Hulagar whispered.
Jubadi spared a quick look at Vuka, who gazed upon the banner with a curious mix of fear and desire, as if it already marked his ascension to power.
"I must do it myself," Jubadi announced.
Hulagar nodded in agreement.
Jubadi drew a deep breath and spurred his mount to a slow canter.
He gazed off to his left. As the last of the trees marking the edge of the pass dropped away, Hulagar looked as well, again feeling that vague sense. Uneasy, he shifted his bronze shield.
Jubadi continued down the gentle slope to where the river flowed, several hundred yards away. A Yankee ironclad, masked by the low bluffs, was barely visible, marked by the single plume of smoke and the top of a mast bearing the banner of Rus.
"Let them see us go into their city," Jubadi sniffed, and the staff chuckled at his words.
The silent ones ranged out around him, forming a circle, watching intently, nothing escaping their notice. Alongside the road several horses laid dead, their riders stretched out beside them, capes over their mangled forms.
"To kill by placing exploding shells in the road— it is cowardly," Jubadi growled.
"It kills nevertheless," Muzta replied.
Muzta looked past him, toward the hills east of town, the barrows golden in the late afternoon sun.
"That is where my glory rests," Muzta said quietly.
Jubadi nodded, saying nothing.
He leaned back in his saddle tired and disappointed, and yet the moment had a pleasure to it. They were across the river and into the heart of the Rus. Losses were not too bad, considering what they had faced. The Yankees had suffered two defeats in less than a double moon, and their morale surely must be dropping away.
He could feel that his mount was tiring—it had been a long ride from the ford. He hadn't bothered to name this horse. It was a vanity, given how quickly they died. Cattle were cattle, but a horse was the companion of life, the saying went. If he had allowed himself to feel for all the mounts he had lost, his heart would have emptied long ago.
He looked over at Hulagar, who rode as always at his right side, shield on his arm. Jubadi remembered how, when he had thought himself alone, his shield-bearer-to-be had wept over the killing of his own first horse. He smiled.
"A warm day, is it not?" Jubadi said, looking up toward the deep blue sky.
"I thought the rains would never end," Hulagar replied.
"The weather had to change," Jubadi said absently.
Coming down the slope, he looked off to his left. Through the turn of the river valley he saw the vast buildings of the Yankees several miles upstream. Even from this distance they looked large. They filled him with an uneasiness. He had hoped to capture them with their mysteries inside. Now they were hollow shells, like corpses that had rotted on the inside, the useless skin and bones all that was left.
The iron-road bridge was still intact. It was a disturbing sight as well. How it had been made was beyond his understanding. He realized that all of it was beyond his understanding. The iron road, the steam-breathers that rode them, the guns, the cloud-flyers, the ships of iron that floated. All of it a mystery.
He looked back for a moment at Tamuka, who rode behind him and to the left of Vuka, shield up as well.
Was the young shield-bearer right, after all? Should all the cattle of this entire world now be slain?
How would that change us? he wondered. Who would be our food? Who would make all the other food we devour with such relish? Who would fashion our bows, our saddles, our yurts, the iron hooves for our horses, the armor we wear, the arrows that fly, the adornments that give us delight?
Jubadi looked up toward the city. His warriors were already sweeping the walls. From high windows he could see his warriors in the buildings. Atop the stone building of cattle worship the standard of the Merki was already flying, warriors beside it.
There was no one in the entire city. A strange moment this. He had expected either to enter it in flames, or to ride in as he had all the other cattle cities of the last two and a half circlings—the beasts lying on the ground, faces pressed to the dirt in obeisance. Never had he seen this.
He looked over at Hulagar.
"Tomorrow, first light, I want us to move hard. We must not give them time to regroup. They are on the edge of being beaten, and they know it, I know it. We can run them down. It is impossible for their steam machines to take every last cattle all the way to Roum in the little time they have had. They must have stopped only partway, at those hills Muzta spoke of. There we will finish them."
Hulagar nodded an agreement.
"They must not be given a moment's time. If we move swiftly enough, panic will strike them, perhaps then they will surrender. If not, we will drive them, and then surely the Roum will give up as well."
He looked back at his cavalcade.
"This is but a temporary setback. The foxes have run, but their legs are short, while ours are long. We will have them in our circle before half a moon is past."
The group nodded, the beginnings of smiles lighting their worried features.
The gentle slope past, he rode out onto the river plain, toward the wooden bridge over the Vina. On the low banks of the opposite side were the outer works of the city. He rode onto the bridge, the hooves of his horse sounding hollow on the boards. Hulagar looked nervously over toward the Neiper River. Strange, there was no Yankee iron-ship in sight. This would have been an ideal place for them to have a ship ready with canister, to sweep any who crossed.
Directly ahead were the outer bastions. Halfway up the side the banner fluttered darkly. Hulagar looked up at it nervously. Jubadi sat for a long moment, then swung down from his mount.
"A torch," he said quietly.
"A moment, my Qarth," Hulagar interjected. With a motion of his hand the silent ones went up the slope, stamping the ground as they moved forward in a line.
The line had reached a spot just below the banner when there was a sharp snap of light, a thunderclap explosion. Hulagar leaped in front of Jubadi, who recoiled, crouching down.
The smoke cleared. Though they could not speak, still they could scream. The torn remains of a silent one lay to one side. Another was down, holding the stump of his leg, a high keening shriek escaping his lips.
One of his companions knelt down beside him and, waving his hands, silently spoke. The wounded one, shaking in agony, raised his hands and moved them in reply. The companion stood back up and drew his scimitar. There was a flash of steel, and the keening stopped.
Hulagar exhaled slowly and looked over at Jubadi, who had watched the scene without emotion.
"They knew this would draw you," Hulagar said. "Somehow they knew. It was a trap."
Jubadi looked over at him.
"Well, now it is sprung, let's burn the damn thing. I'm tired and hungry. Bring up a cattle. We'll eat well tonight, and forget about this."
A silent one came up bearing a torch.
Hulagar could see the barely suppressed fear in Jubadi's eyes as he looked back up at the black banner.
"How did they know about this?" Jubadi whispered.
He started up the slope, Hulagar following behind him.
He looked around closely. The wall was lined with his warriors. The river was empty. How could they have known?
Jubadi reached the banner.
"This is but the sacrilege of cattle!" he shouted, his voice carrying across the field and reaching the thousands of warriors who had paused as they spread out across the plains. "I, Jubadi, take the yurts of the cattle as my own. I, Jubadi, still live as Qar Qarth, and spit on the roasted bones of our enemy the cattle."
He touched the torch to the bottom of the banner, holding it there for long seconds until it had started to flare into flame. He stepped back.
Hulagar looked back out across the field.
How?
The insight came of a sudden: the cattle Yuri.
His gaze shot over to Tamuka, who was watching the ceremony, a thin smile lighting his features.
Yuri pushed the gray piece of canvas aside and peered out. Several Merki had ridden right over him, the first wave spreading out. One of their horses had fallen as it clambered over the slippery boulders, the rider cursing so hard that he had almost laughed at the Merki's discomfort. They had ridden on, leaving him alone and
never seeing his concealed position.
Yes, it was now.
He crawled up out of the small cave dug in between the boulders and barely peered up over the edge, looking out between the trees. He tried to suppress the shivering, not sure if it was from lying hidden in the damp cave all day or from fear.
He raised the telescope and extended it to full length, pushing it out through the canvas curtain to scan the column riding down the road. He had no trouble in spotting him. The broad shoulders, that manner of riding. It was not a double, something he had been known to use in battle. No, it was definitely him.
That knowledge alone had been the key to the argument with Keane. He alone could easily spot Jubadi. There were Cartha who had seen him before, but usually only for a brief moment. Only one person could do this. He had ridden behind him for twenty years, pet to his son's shield-bearer. He alone could pick out Jubadi no matter where he was, whether in full ceremonial armor and with standards about him, or as he was now, in battle armor and as undistinguished as his silent ones.
There was Hulagar, and Yuri felt a twinge of regret. The shield-bearer paused to turn his mount and look over his shoulder.
Was the tu calling? Yuri froze, his breath coming shallow. He shifted the telescope away so as not to be looking straight at him, fearing that the inner spirit was calling the warning.
He could almost sense the probing, the looking outward. He had seen far too many examples of the sensing not to believe in its power. He could feel the hair at the back of his neck prickling.
He waited.
Hulagar turned his mount and continued on, crossing the bridge behind Jubadi Qar Qarth.
Moving slowly, Yuri reached down and brought up the long leather case. He untied the drawstring and brought it out, the long brass tube barely visible in the darkness of the narrow dank cave. The tiny hovel was filled with the scent of oil, metal, and polished wood.
He calmed his breathing. There was still a little time.
The same place for five heartbeats, Andrew had told him.
He peeked out from the curtain once again. The sky was a dark blue, going into early evening.
It would be warm farther south. The horde yurts already going into their clan circles. The sun-watch-ers preparing to call out the songs of evening prayer.
Terrible Swift Sword Page 38
