Rally Cry

by William R. Forstchen

  He knew his knights and landholders were watching this confrontation, and in the fine balance of power between the boyars and the church, he could not lose, on even the most minor of points.

  "How else can you explain them?" Rasnar whispered darkly. "This is not as we came from the blessed land. They have appeared to us with the weapons of Dabog. You smelled the smoke—it was the smoke of the fire that torments the fallen. They have been sent by Dabog, the evil one, to destroy us, unless we destroy them first."

  Ivor could hear the mumbling of his knights. They were still terrified by what had happened. He knew Rasnar sensed it as well, and would press on that. If he conceded, and did not find another answer, Rasnar's priests could use it to their advantage, perhaps even turning the knights against the boyars, blaming them for what had happened.

  Already one of his spies reported hearing several priests say that the blue devils had been sent to punish the rulers for having seized the power of choosing and taxing from the church.

  "So what do you propose?" Ivor whispered, so that none would hear his question.

  "The proper prayers must be read, the men must be blessed, and you must send forward with the rising of Perm's light at dawn."

  "They'll be slaughtered. And besides, why should I send them forward?"

  "The church has no power to do such a thing. Remember, it was you boyars who took that away from its rightful control," Rasnar replied sharply. "And once destroyed," Rasnar added smoothly, "their devilish devices must be taken by the church for safekeeping."

  Ivor gave a snort of disdain.

  "Oh, so it is all that simple. And what do you propose then to do with these devices, which you have now openly called unholy?"

  "Why, destroy them, of course," Rasnar replied sanctimoniously.

  Ivor threw his head back and laughed.

  "Do you hear that?" he roared so his knights would hear. "The church will take the devices and destroy them. Of course, I should fully trust you in this, your holiness?"

  Rasnar did not reply, his gaze fixed darkly on his hated rival.

  "But you are forgetting one thing," Rasnar whispered, putting his hand on Ivor's shoulder and leading him farther into the darkness.

  "And that is what, your holiness?" Ivor asked, still grinning.

  "The Tugars."

  Ivor whirled about and faced the priest.

  "What of the Tugars?" Even he found it difficult to control the fear in his voice.

  "I am trying to save you from yourself and your grasping designs," Rasnar whispered. "I saw your face when the thunder weapons fired. You were afraid, yet already your thoughts were turning. You imagined what such things could do against Boros of Novrod, or Ivan of Vazima. You wish to take these things and use them in your own mad dream for control of all the Rus."

  Ivor was silent as the priest repeated what he had been thinking.

  "You could succeed with these things," Rasnar whispered, "but what then of the Tugars? What will they say when they come and see what you have done? The last time a single boyar united the Rus without their permission, they broke his body and sent him to the pit. What will they say with you having these devices?"

  "I would give them to the Qar Qarth as a sign of my loyalty," Ivor replied nervously.

  Now it was Rasnar's turn to grin as he shook his head.

  "The Tugars appointed boyar and church to rule together," Rasnar said quickly, "and I will not allow you to seize then-devices and will denounce you to the Qar Qarth as having plotted against their rule. What is to stop you from using such things to throw down my church?"

  "You bastard," Ivor hissed. "I will not allow you to seize such things and use them against me."

  "Remember as well," Rasnar continued, ignoring the insult, "if we do not eliminate these demons, the Tugars will find them and we might be blamed."

  "How?" Ivor asked nervously.

  "Because if they can do what they did to us, and if they are still here, perhaps they will try it on the Tugars as well. And we both know who the Tugars will blame."

  Ivor's eyes grew wide with fear.

  Rasnar saw that he had hit the right point.

  "Kill them now, lord boyar, turn the weapons over to the church for safekeeping," Rasnar whispered.

  "But the Tugars are still four winters away," Ivor replied, trying to temporize.

  "Yet is it not said the ears of the Tugars encompass the world?" Rasnar replied softly.

  Rasnar smiled and put his hand on Ivor's shoulder in a conciliatory gesture.

  Ivor, known as Weak Eyes, squinted and looked toward the encampment of the strangers, which appeared as hazy blotches of firelight on the other side of the field. Who were these men? Were they demons after all? Could they be a threat to the balance between his Suzdalians and the Tugars?

  But what power? he thought. First I could unite all the Rus under my banner and then without any havens and rival boyars for him to rush to I could bring down Rasnar and place my puppet in his place. Surely the Tugars would not object to that. And besides, the Tugars are four winters away, but the Novrodians are only a day's march to the east.

  If he destroyed them now, there would be the struggle for the weapons, for surely Rasnar would strike fear into everyone's heart with his shoutings from the pulpit of the cathedral. If he let them live and used them, there would be a problem as well, but they could be used, and mastered. Perhaps they could even be turned against the church, making it appear as if they were demons who had simply gotten out of control. When the time finally came, they could then be disposed of. Thinking about something as terrifying as the Tugars required too much effort, and he pushed the thought of them away.

  Ivor looked back at Rasnar and grinned. Brushing aside Rasnar's hand, Ivor started back to the campfire, where his arms men waited expectantly. Damn fools, he thought. In spite of today's display, they were most likely still eager to charge the blue warriors yet again.

  He had to act quickly, for most likely word had already reached Novrod of this strange occurrence. It was not wise to leave his city for too long with his mounted border watchers.

  Returning to the flickering circle of light, Ivor settled down on his camp stool and looked about at the nervous stares that greeted him.

  "Send for that damned bard of mine," Ivor snapped.

  Grabbing hold of a wooden mug, Ivor leaned over and scooped out a tankard of stale beer from the small barrel by his side. Draining the drink off, he scooped out another round and looked up to see the peasant he had sent for.

  "Where in the name of Kesus have you been?" he roared.

  The rotund peasant looked at him wide-eyed.

  "Composing a new ballad in honor of my lord," he said nervously.

  "Kalencka, I know damned well you were hiding. I saw you not with my household when we advanced. I grant you the scraps of my feasting table, and dammit, I expect payment of loyalty in return," Ivor roared.

  "But my lord, I needed a vantage point to observe your heroic actions so I could record them later in the Chronicles."

  Ivor looked at the man with a jaundiced eye.

  Damned peasants, they were all alike. Lying, murderous scum, loud to complain, first to run away, and always ready to blame their betters for every ill. There were times he thought he or the Tugars should simply murder the entire lot so he wouldn't have to put up with their stench.

  "You seem to be able to talk your way out of anything," Ivor replied coldly, "so I've decided you can be of some use to me rather than stealing from my table for nothing but badly worded verse in reply."

  "Whatever you wish, my lord," Kalencka replied, bowing low so that his right hand swept the ground.

  "Go to the camp of the blue ones."

  Kalencka looked up at Boyar Ivor, his eyes growing wide with fear.

  "But my lord," he said softly, "I am a ballad maker, a chronicler, not a warrior."

  "That is why you are to go," Ivor retorted, the tone in his voice making it clear that any argu
ment could have the most unpleasant results.

  Ivor looked around at his men and then to Rasnar.

  "There is no rush in these things," he said evenly. "First let us see who they are. Perhaps we can learn their secrets as well and then use such things against them."

  Without a word, Rasnar turned away and stormed off into the darkness. Ivor followed him with his gaze. There would be trouble over this. Perhaps he could lure him out of the cathedral and across the square to the palace for a very special meal if things got too difficult. Even as the thought crossed his mind he decided that until this thing was settled it would be best to receive the holy bread from a hand other than the patriarch's.

  Ivor looked back at Kalencka, who was still before him, his nasty peasant eyes staring at him.

  "Get out of my sight," Ivor roared. "Go to their camp now. Tell them they are on my land and I demand an explanation. When you have mastered something of their language I want their leader brought to my presence for a meeting. I want information from you as well, and don't return until you've found something of interest for me. I am leaving my half brother Mikhail in command here and will take my border riders back to the city." As he spoke he pointed to a towering bearlike warrior standing to one side of the fire.

  Ivor smiled and looked over at his brother. If something did go wrong, he thought craftily, Mikhail could take the burden. Besides, Rasnar would most likely return to Suzdal tonight, and it would not be wise to leave him alone in the city. More than one boyar had left his town only to return days later to find the gates locked to him.

  "Now get out of my sight and do something, you stinking scum," Ivor roared.

  Bowing repeatedly, Kalencka retreated from the wrath of his lord. Once out of the circle he finally straightened up and looked about.

  "Well, this is the mouse leaping into the mouth of the fox," Kalencka mumbled to himself, "and the wolf stands by to watch his two meals dance."

  Kalencka looked over toward the blue warriors' camp. He couldn't simply walk up to them in the dark. If they were demons it wouldn't matter, but if they were men, they might think he was trying to sneak up.

  Taking a torch from one of the guards that surrounded Ivor's camp, he started out alone across the open field, hoping that the flickering light would dispel any suspicions.

  From over in the blue warrior camp he heard a rising chorus of shouts. Perhaps they were preparing to attack. But there was no getting around it now. He knew one of Ivor's guards would be following at a distance to put an arrow through him if he turned back. The wolf was definitely at his back, so it was to the fox then.

  But even a mouse can talk, he thought to himself, so that the wolf and the fox will not see him but only each other.

  Try as he could, Vincent Hawthorne could not stop himself from shaking. Hinsen wasn't helping the matter at all.

  In his sheltered life growing up in a Quaker community, Vincent had never met a man like Hinsen.

  His world had been one of farm work, meeting for worship, and the Oak Grove School of Vassalboro. Even a trip to Waterville, six miles away, was something usually only done with his mother or father, who openly stated that the mill town was a place of sin which should be seen only when absolutely necessary. His life had in no way prepared him for his first day in the army.

  He had heard dozens of new words, put together in all sorts of combinations that he had never imagined before. For the first time in his life he had witnessed cardplaying, dice-throwing, and the drinking of intoxicating liquids, and, to his stunned dismay, had actually seen soiled doves, which the men called hookers, after the hard-fighting General Hooker, who, legend had it, traveled with such ladies of the evening in his camp.

  The steady stream of obscenities from Hinsen he had learned to ignore, but to now hear the man desperately praying out loud was totally unexpected and thus unnerving.

  Yet he could understand. He looked off to what he assumed must be east and touched the Bible in his breast pocket.

  There were two moons in the sky.

  As darkness fell the stars had come out, and that had been bad enough, for nothing in the heavens was right. The gentle splash of what should have been the Milky Way was now a brilliant shimmering band shaped like a wheel, which filled half the sky with such a glow that it was almost possible to read his Bible from the light.

  When the stars first came out, Sergeant Barry had come along and said they must be south of the equator. Vincent heard a couple of former sailors over in Company B scoff at that, but he clung to what Barry had said.

  And then the moon had appeared. But it was too small, far too small, and did not look right at all. To the left of it another moon appeared scant minutes later, and now all about him was in an uproar.

  Some like Hinsen were openly on their knees, praying at the top of their lungs. Others, some of whom he knew to be battle-hardened veterans, were weeping, calling for home or loved ones, while here and there a voice was shouting for Colonel Keane to get them out and take them home.

  Vincent looked over to the beached ship, and though he had come to dispel the man, he was glad that Captain Cromwell was still aboard, for more than one man was blaming the situation on him, and calling for a lynching.

  There was nothing to be done, Vincent realized. If Keane knew the answer, he would be out and around telling them, but over in officer country he saw the colonel and the other officers talking, raising their heads to look about the encampment, and then in bewilderment to the twin moons that were moving rapidly into the sky.

  "Thou shall not be afraid of the terror by night," Vincent whispered, touching his Bible. He turned back toward the circle of fires around the camp.

  Shocked, he cocked his rifle and brought it up. There was a light moving toward him. In all the confusion no one had noticed it, and it was coming straight at him.

  "Sergeant of the guard!"

  His voice could be barely heard above the confusion.

  "Sergeant of the guard!" Vincent looked over his shoulder, desperate for some help, but all around him was confusion.

  The light was drawing closer.

  By the starlight he could see a lone man bearing a torch, standing rigidly before him, not twenty yards away.

  "Sergeant Barry!" Vincent cried.

  Still no response. He had to do something. He was supposed to be on sentry duty, and Barry had roared at him more than once about staying exactly where he was put. He just couldn't run back to one of the officers; they might think he was running away.

  He had to do something.

  Taking a deep breath, he clambered up over the breastworks. Lowering his rifle to the advance position, he started out across the field toward the solitary figure.

  Could he shoot this man? Vincent wondered. Since the start of the war he had wrestled with that. To kill was the greatest sin, the elders had taught him. But to him the enslavement of fellow men was just as heinous. For that reason he had finally resolved to run away and join the army, hoping nevertheless that in the confusion of a battle he would never see a reb that he would be forced to aim at.

  But as far as he could tell, these men weren't rebs. What now? Even as he advanced he decided that come what may he would not shoot, but nevertheless, as if in spite of himself, he kept his gun cocked and pointed.

  Gradually the silhouette took on features. The man was short and rotund. He was dressed in a simple pullover shirt that fell to his knees and had a wide flowing black beard that cascaded down nearly to his waist.

  Vincent stopped, his leveled bayonet pointed squarely at the man's oversized stomach.

  "Identify yourself, friend or foe," Vincent squeaked out.

  The man before him started to break into a grin, and held his two arms out to either side, still smiling.

  "Go on, tell me who you are," Vincent whispered.

  Ever so slowly the man thumped his chest with his right hand.

  "Kalencka."

  Vincent let the point of his bayonet drop. How co
uld he stick this man? The fellow was grinning at him.

  "Who the hell is out there?"

  "It's me, Sergeant Barry!"

  "Damn you, soldier, who the hell is me!"

  "Private Hawthorne. I've got one of them out here."

  "Well, goddammit, private, bring the prisoner in!"

  "You heard him," Vincent said softly. "You've got to come in with me," and motioning with his rifle he indicated that the stranger should lead the way.

  "Kalencka."

  "I guess that's his name," Emil said softly.

  Andrew nodded and sat down on his camp chair. Exhausted, he tried to focus his attention. It seemed that all discipline in the regiment was near to breaking. He could hear Schuder roaring out commands, but still there was the shouting. Damn it all, he was terrified himself. There could only be one explanation to all of this, but his mind recoiled at the enormity of it all.

  Somehow they were no longer on earth. What other explanation was possible at this point? But each time he tried to come to grips with the thought, he felt as if he wanted to crawl away, fall asleep, and pray that when he awoke he would either be dead from the storm or somehow back in the world he knew and could understand.

  The crack of a carbine snapped his thoughts back. The camp fell silent.

  "All right, you ignorant, whining, lazy bastards!" Schuder roared. "You're nothing but fresh fish, the whole damned lot of you. And I thought the 35th had men in it. You're crying like green boys being led to see the elephant. Now goddammit, act like men, or so help me I'll thrash the next man who so much as peeps, mit god I'll do it!"

  Andrew held his breath. The sergeant major was the most feared man in the regiment, and he could only hope the fear of Schuder would be greater than the unknown that confronted them.

  There were a couple of low murmurs.

  "I heard you, Fredricks, you little milksop, you whinny coward."

  There was a loud snap and a grunt of pain, and Andrew winced. He hoped his officers all had the good sense not to be looking; otherwise there'd be hell to pay for Schuder.

  "All right then, you bastards, we understand each other. Now back to your posts."