Fateful Lightning

by William R. Forstchen

  On the next track rested half a dozen axles, the iron wheels black with soot, the track scorched, the ashes about it still smoldering. What had they burned? One of the train wagons, most likely. Unable to move it, they wouldn’t even leave that, though it was useless without the machines to make it move.

  A low rumbling boom echoed down from the west. He turned in his saddle. For a moment, above the line of hills he saw a trace of fire dropping down, a shell from one of their iron ships. It disappeared. Then there came another boom, another shell dropping down, this one bursting silently in the sky, seconds later its report rolling past.

  “You cannot use fire?” Muzta asked.

  “It is our way in the mourning,” Tamuka replied, “except if survival is at stake, either from freezing or direct attack.”

  “Foolish.”

  “To shoot back at the ships is useless anyway. They are too heavily armored.”

  Muzta did not reply, still looking westward to see if the shelling from the river would continue.

  “You should press in, stop for nothing. Give them their thirty days and it gives them time to restart the machines that once rested here.”

  “I know that,” Tamuka said coldly. “Nevertheless, it is the way.”

  “And yet at Orki, even with the death of Jubadi’s father you still fought.”

  “Because he still rode with us until the fight was done. The cattle are not here,” and he pointed vaguely toward the east, “they continue to run away. If this field were still in dispute, Jubadi even now would ride.”

  “As did my father,” Muzta replied. “We tied him to his horse, a sword blade strapped to his back to keep him erect, Qubata holding the reins and I at his side. Even as he corrupted we fought until you were defeated, and then we mourned.”

  Muzta tried to force the thought away, remembering his father tumbling from the saddle, yet even in death a thin smile on his features. There had been no time for final words. Only that enigmatic smile, the arrow in his chest quivering and then becoming still.

  While the battle still raged, Qubata had drawn the heart out, squeezing the blood of it over the head of the new Qar Qarth. Remounting, he had pressed back into the fight, slaying even as he wept. They had tied the body to the saddle, as did the Merki for their Qar Qarth, on that same day and for two days afterward, until at last, on the third morning, the decaying body was cut loose and allowed to rest, the great battle of Orki finished.

  “Sarg, Hulagar, and Vuka declared the mourning to be observed starting now, since the enemy was not upon the field before us,” Tamuka said.

  “And you would have done differently?”

  “You know the answer to that,” Tamuka snarled.

  Muzta nodded.

  “Did you kill Jubadi?” Muzta asked, looking straight at Tamuka.

  The shield-bearer, startled, looked into Muzta’s eyes.

  “Tugar, you are mad even to think such thoughts,” Tamuka said, his words drawn out as if he chose each one with care.

  Muzta merely smiled and nudged his mount forward, going up over the tracks and heading for the abandoned foundry. Tamuka hesitated and with a rake of spurs followed after Muzta, coming up alongside of him.

  “It’s just that the cattle was your cattle. I am told that the spirit ways of the shield-bearer can, at times, direct the minds of others. It could have been a most clever plan within a plan.”

  He looked straight at Tamuka, who returned his gaze without a hint of emotion and said nothing.

  They entered the foundry through its open cavernous doors, the hooves of Tamuka’s horse striking sparks on the rails that went straight into the building. The building was dark, cool, a vast open shed that could have stabled the horses of an entire regiment of a thousand. The dirt floor was bare, except for the great stone foundations of the machines, the stone hearths now cold. A wooden drive shaft no longer connected to the bellows it once powered turned slowly in the air, rising and falling, driven by the thin trickle of water that continued to turn one of the wheels outside the building, the wheel slowly creaking, groaning, its thin sound filling the vast space like the whisper of a voice, a reminder of what had once been a thundering cacophony.

  Tamuka looked about, filled with a vague sense of dread. He had stood countless hours in the factories that had been built in Cartha, the factories that had turned out the hundreds of cannons, the muskets, the sheathing of iron for the ships. But they were nothing compared to this.

  The wheels of the Cartha factories had been powered by ten thousand cattle, who walked inside of them till they dropped and died to be replaced by more. The machines had been crude, heavy, wasteful even to his untutored eyes. Yet within here he could see just how different his foes were.

  He nudged his mount across the foundry floor. He knew enough now of the cattle arts of metal that he could trace out the steps. Outside the building he had seen the long slope of earth leading to the top of the buildings up which the wagonloads of ore, coke, and flux must have been drawn by cables hooked to water wheels. Inside, here, he could see where the metal had flown out into troughs, and then moved down the length of the building, the great frames of the hammers still embedded in the ground. Farther down were the molds for the cannons and yet more forges, more kilns. Overhead dangled cables for lifting. Side doors led to yet other buildings, iron rails going down the length of those buildings as well. All of it so orderly, so perfectly arranged, so terrifying in its exactness.

  “This is our future if we do not destroy them,” Tamuka said coldly. “This is what I have sworn by the blood of my ancestors to end, before it goes any further. Not you, not the Bantag, not any of us must ever be seduced by what this can produce, or our world is dead. Only the perversion of cattle minds could imagine this.”

  Muzta smiled.

  “And when you have finished with them, I do wonder what you plan for me at the end of all of this,” Muzta said.

  “Vuka is the Qar Qarth, not I,” Tamuka replied.

  “But of course.”

  Tamuka stared at Muzta for a long moment.

  . “You should have died with your warriors. At least there would have been honor in that,” he said.

  “Maybe you’ll have the chance yourself when you lead yours to destruction,” Muzta replied. “I agree that the cattle are our enemies. Yet our arrogance is our enemy as well. The world is wide, the war only beginning. Do not be blinded by your desires to destroy them.”

  He hesitated for a moment.

  “Or by your own desire to make yourself Qar Qarth and to use this war as an excuse for your rise to power.”

  Tamuka wrestled for control, and unable to fight the rising passion, he reined his horse about and galloped out of the building.

  Muzta watched him leave and then slowly followed, turning his mount northward to cross the flowing waters of the Vina and return to where the two umens still under his command were camped, while the wind carried with it the reverberation of the drums, which would beat with the rhythm of a pulsing heart for the next twenty-nine days.

  “Engines stop!”

  Hamilcar Baca, leader of the exiled people of Cartha, watched as the captain of the gunboat Antietam, named after the ship that had gone down a year ago in battle against him, edged his vessel up alongside New Ironsides. The two ironclads bumped gently, momentarily causing him to lose balance so that he had to grab hold of the gun carriage of the seventy-five-pound carronade mounted behind the starboard gun hatch.

  “Get some lines across and watch out for snipers,” the captain shouted, sticking his head down through the hatchway into the main gundeck.

  The forward and aft gun hatches, empty with the two guns mounted amidships, were flung open. Half a dozen men issued out from each. Crouching low, they ran along the armored deck. They tossed lines across to the waiting crew of the New Ironsides, who secured the cables to their own ship. A rough gangplank was run up from below deck. Fenders made out of short woven lengths of rope were draped between th
e two ships while the gangplank was run across.

  “It’s clear.”

  Hamilcar, ducking low, went through the forward gunport, his staff following. Gaining the open deck, he took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh late-spring air, tinged with a cool scent of pines. Since entering the Neiper they had slowly made their way upriver against the heavy spring run, sealed inside the ovenlike interior of the ship. As they passed the walls of Fort Lincoln he had seen the first of the Merki patrols on the east shore of the river. They had watched the ship pass in silence. The enemy guns, positioned in batteries on the west bank just below Suzdal, were silent, not even venturing a harassing shot. The silence had filled him with foreboding.

  The shore on either side was not more than a medium arrow flight away. He could see a knot of Merki on the west bank, mounted, silent.

  To the east the riverfront walls of Suzdal loomed. It brought back memories of a year ago—the final rush for the city when he had still served the Merki, ruler of an enslaved people doing the bidding of his masters. He had wanted to take Suzdal—after all, he was a warrior and that was his task—but there was no real love in it, not as if he were doing it for his own glory, his own triumph.

  Then had come the realization of the Merki betrayal, that Suzdal would not be ruled as a human fiefdom of the Merki, but rather would be occupied by that horde; and that his own people would be sent into the slaughter pits anyhow. That had been the underlying reason behind his fighting the two republics, to spare his people the choosing of two in ten for the feasts.

  He looked up at the city walls. They were lined with Merki warriors, who stood in silence, watching him. Strange sight. Merki in a city he had come to believe would never be taken. Behind them, the high golden domes of the churches reflected the afternoon light, the wooden walls of the houses and palaces within adorned with, to his eyes, bizarre wood carvings the Rus took such delight in, so unlike the brilliant limestone of his own palace, or the mud brick of the common people.

  Hamilcar looked at them coldly. Not like them. At the very least they’d toss out some arrows just for the sport of killing a cattle or two. Merki were predictable in that. He had seen far too many cut down on the mere whim of testing a blade, or just for the sport, to alleviate a couple of moments of boredom and in the process leave a score of dead behind.

  Watching the Merki out of the corner of his eye, he went across the rough gangplank, stepping onto the deck of the New Ironsides. A shrill pipe sounded, a Yankee custom he found annoying, the piercing cry always sending a shiver down his back. A young Suzdalian naval officer stood by the gangplank; coming to attention, he saluted Hamilcar.

  “Admiral Bullfinch is waiting for you on the gundeck,” the officer said, his Cartha barely understandable.

  “What has been going on here?” Hamilcar asked.

  “The admiral awaits you, sir. I’d suggest we move quickly—they might shoot at any moment,” the officer replied, obviously drilled for this one formality and totally out of his league beyond the formal greeting.

  Shaking his head, Hamilcar stepped past the officer and climbed through the bow gunport, moving fast, suspicious that a turned back would be far too much of a temptation for one of the watching Merki.

  As he stood up in the stifling gloom he saw a lone Yankee officer waiting for him, dressed in a blue uniform of the same cut as the traitor Cromwell’s. A jagged scar creased the young man’s face from jaw to crown, furrowing underneath a black patch that covered his blinded eye.

  They were of nearly the same height. But Hamilcar was bull-like, his bare arms knotted with muscles that were now, in middle age, beginning to show the first signs of the decline that so quickly transformed a muscular youth into stoutness. His black beard curled down over his chest, freshly oiled, matching the heavy matted hair that covered his body. The youth before him was nearly frail in comparison, the dark blue wool jacket and trousers hanging limp on a slender frame, the gold-trimmed sash about his waist pulled in tight, revealing just how slight the admiral of the Suzdalian navy truly was. But his gaze was hard, though Hamilcar could detect a nervousness.

  “The city has fallen, then?” Hamilcar began, skipping past the usual ritual of pleasantries, driving straight to the point. Elazar, his closest friend and translator, barely through the gunport behind him, rattled off the question.

  “The day before yesterday,” Bullfinch replied. “We can talk about it later, though. Would you care for something to eat first, or perhaps something to drink?”

  “I want some questions answered, then we drink,” Hamilcar replied sharply.

  Bullfinch nodded, waiting.

  “Coming up the river, and here, the Merki have not fired upon us. They watch in silence.”

  He looked at Bullfinch, waiting for Elazar to finish. The admiral said nothing.

  “And the drums—we heard them from the west shore, even before we gained the river.”

  He fell silent again, and as if to emphasize his point, the distant heartbeat rhythm drifted through the gunports.

  “Something has happened. I suspected something; I did not know what. But I know enough of your Keane to know that he would not so meekly surrender all of your land without an action in reply. Tell me what has happened.”

  “The Merki Qar Qarth is dead,” Bullfinch said quietly.

  Stunned, Hamilcar looked away. Jubadi dead. He had no love for this Qar Qarth, yet it was hard to imagine that such a being, who wielded such power, was indeed mortal after all.

  And the enormity of what might be unfolding around him struck as well.

  “How?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  “A sniper. The pet Yuri killed him.”

  The translator stumbled on the word “sniper.”

  Bullfinch, realizing the difficulty, explained what had happened—what a Whitworth sniper gun was capable of, how Yuri had volunteered at Andrew’s request, and how the Merki had stopped their advance.

  Hamilcar’s features flushed, and he lowered his head, the rage building inside of him, washed over with a sick sense of anguish.

  “Do you realize what this means for my people?” he hissed.

  “I think so, sir,” Bullfinch replied, still standing stiffly at attention.

  “No, you don’t, you really don’t,” Hamilcar replied. “You’ve never even seen a slaughter pit, let alone the funeral of a Qar Qarth.”

  Bullfinch said nothing.

  “Did Keane know what would happen?”

  “I can’t speak for the colonel, sir.”

  “He knew enough that it would stop the Merki for thirty days, so he must have known the rest,” Elazar interjected.

  Hamilcar nodded.

  Hamilcar turned away and went over to the gunport. The walls of Suzdal were now barely visible in the gathering darkness. Not a single fire illuminated the city, or the hills beyond. The only sound was the drums, the ever-beating drums… and when they stopped, so would stop the life of every one of his people who was captive.

  “It sounds horrible, sir,” Bullfinch said, coming up to stand by Hamilcar, “but your people were doomed the moment they were taken by the Merki. In the end they would have died anyhow.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Hamilcar whispered.

  He looked over at Bullfinch.

  “You know that my wife disappeared, was most likely taken captive by them last year. She might be dead by now—I pray to Baalk that she is. But she might be in their camps even now, listening to those drums, knowing what they mean. Oh, believe me, Yankee, the people of this world know what those drums mean, what the death of a Qar Qarth by the hands of cattle means.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know.”

  “Keane did.”

  He looked over at Bullfinch, wanting to vent his rage, but for the moment unable to do so.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I wish there were something we could do.”

  “Your sorrow won’t change it. Your sorrow won’t change the fact that if you had never
been here, the world would be as it was. The Merki would have ridden east with this spring. Two in ten of my people would be gone, but the rest of us would have survived, to live in peace for another twenty years.

  “How many have died in these wars since you cursed Yankees came! Half of all the Rus, I hear. Half of your Rus, and now you don’t even have a country.”

  “At least we still have our freedom,” Bullfinch replied, but his voice sounded hollow, unconvincing.

  Hamilcar gave a snort of disdain.

  “Small comfort, that word of yours. Small comfort when the Merki ride forth with vengeance in their hearts. It will be small comfort when they sweep you aside like dust before the wind and plunge through the Roum. You are a defeated people, the murder of Jubadi a last desperate bid that only delays the end.

  “And what of my people?” His voice started to rise, cold and angry. “We did not want this war, I did not want it. It was your coming that destroyed our world as it was. What do you think they will do to us when this is done?”

  “We are all in this together. War between humans and the hordes had to come sooner or later.”

  “Then dammit, it could have been later. Cromwell was right in that. He wanted to let the hordes ride through, and then come out and take twenty years to prepare, to get ready for them. I believe he dreamed that even when he attacked you last year. To buy time knowing that eventually they would ride on.”

  “Events forced our hand,” Bullfinch replied, remembering with a twinge of guilt how he had listened to Hawthorne’s impassioned speech against Cromwell’s position back at the very beginning of things. Hawthorne had swayed him to vote that way, never realizing all the repercussions that would come. He never imagined that it would lead him to this moment, this telling a man that hundreds of thousands of his people were now doomed.

  “Keane did not even have the courage to tell me before he planned this madness,” Hamilcar said coldly.