Rally Cry

by William R. Forstchen

  He looked back at Alem.

  "And find some religious excuse for eating unclean meat, or you'll be on the end of my sword," Muzta snarled, and turned and walked away.

  The group broke away, leaving Muzta to his thoughts. Looking about the empty square, Muzta walked over to the steps of the pyramid and started to climb upward. Reaching the top, he peered into the small sacrificial chamber. The stench drove him out, mumbling darkly about the unclean practices of cattle.

  Sitting down on the steps, he gazed eastward. Qubata, riding hard, should have covered the three hundred leagues to the land of the Rus. He could only hope that his nagging fears about the Yankees were unfounded and that the pox had not reached there as well.

  "Just what the hell are they?" Andrew asked, field glasses focused on the strange-looking band making its way down the river road from the northwest.

  "The first harbingers of doom," Casmar said. "The Wandering People, we call them."

  "Wandering People?"

  "They are the ones who choose to flee rather than submit to the horde. They start to appear several months or more before the Tugars arrive. The Tugars have laid down strict laws that if a person flees from their advance he may never return back to his home after they have gone. If they discover that we have harbored such a person, then a thousand extra die. Thus those unfortunate souls are doomed to wander forever, begging and stealing what they can."

  "Gypsies," Emil said, borrowing Andrew's field glasses for a look.

  "Then if they are here . . ." Andrew said, looking back at the prelate.

  "The Tugars are not far behind."

  "Get a detachment, Hans. We'll go out to meet them."

  Climbing down from the battlements, Andrew mounted his horse while a mixed guard of Union soldiers and a detachment of Suzdalians, bearing the first muskets tc come out of the mill, formed up.

  Setting an easy pace, Andrew started up the road, his men falling in behind him.

  "Never heard mention before of these people," Emil said, bringing his mount up alongside Andrew.

  "I guess they just don't like to talk about them. It's the next messenger after the Namer. I only hope we still have six more months, as we originally planned for."

  He knew that no matter what happened they could never have enough time. The main problem he'd been wrestling with now was the simple fact that Suzdal could not hold the half million people they now estimated would seek refuge when the war started. A second city was now going up, between the city walls and the outer breastworks a quarter mile farther out. Emil had been fretting constantly about that, and with good reason; maintaining sanitation for so many people, living cheek to jowl, would be darn near impossible. He would have to turn these new people away— there wasn't enough to go around as it was, and the possibility of thousands more would threaten them all.

  In the distance he saw the beginning of the approaching column. Reining in his horse, Andrew waited for their approach. There was no reason to expect trouble, but nevertheless the men were shaken out into a line across the path, and with fixed bayonets waited. He wanted them coming no closer to Suzdal, for it was possible that a spy of the Tugars could be among them.

  The ragged column approached and finally stopped a dozen yards away.

  Andrew felt as if he were looking at some history tale gone mad, with all the pages somehow jumbled up. Several in the group looked like Aztecs or some other such tribe, one of them wearing an ornamental headdress of feathers. Several others wore long pleated skirts frayed and tattered with age; others were in silken robes, one with a samurai sword belted about his waist.

  Andrew could not help but point with amazement at a bent-over man wearing the tarnished and battered breastplate of a Roman soldier.

  "My God in heaven," Andrew whispered, "are these the other people on this world?"

  Weeping, one of the group stepped forward, bowed low in the manner of the Rus, and then, bending over, kissed the ground.

  "For seventeen snows I have prayed to come back, to die in the land of my birth," the old man said, "for I have been all about the world and find that indeed my path returns me home."

  The man came forward. Overcome with pity, Emil got off his mount and walked up to the man, who embraced him, sobbing.

  The others started forward, but Andrew held up his hand, beckoning for them to stop.

  "They're just a harmless band of beggars," Emil argued, looking up at Andrew.

  "Tell those people to come no closer," Andrew said, looking at the old man. "They can camp out here, and we'll give them food for tonight, but I don't want them coming near the city."

  "We won't stay," the old man whispered. "We know we're cursed, but rumor came to us that there were some humans who at last wished to fight, and we wanted to see this with our own eyes."

  "How do you know that?" Andrew demanded.

  "We are the Wanderers of the World—such word reaches us, and we carry it. But we will not stay, for already not a day's ride behind us comes an advance guard of the Tugar horde."

  "What?"

  Jumping from his mount, Andrew came up to the old man.

  "That is why we came this way to warn you. We could have stayed north of here, but I persuaded my friends to do otherwise."

  Andrew looked back at the group, feeling pity.

  From out of the fields a knot of Suzdalians came down to the road to look at the forbidden Wanderers. Eagerly the old man scanned their faces.

  "Do any of you know Helga Petrovna, from the street of wool merchants?" the old man croaked.

  "I know of her," one of the workers cried. "She is married to my cousin!"

  "Is she well?" the old man asked, tears streaking his face.

  "Yes, alive and well, with three children, one of them near full-grown."

  "Then I have lived to know I am a grandfather."

  Sobbing, the old man collapsed on the ground, and despite Andrew's attempts to stop them the peasants gathered around the old man.

  The rest of the Wanderers came forward, looking curiously at the drama before them.

  More and more peasants came out of the fields to join the ever-increasing crowd, and soon there were cries of alarm when word of the old man's warning was passed.

  "Goddammit, Emil, there's going to be a panic over this!"

  Emil stood up and left the old man while others tended to him. Curious, he wandered through the crowd, amazed at this flotsam that had traveled around the world, sweeping up fragments from a score of civilizations across thousands of years of time.

  Several litters were being dragged at the back of the column, tied to an old nag that seemed on its last legs. A number of Suzdalians stood about the litter, gazed upon it, and then drew back.

  Coming up to the first litter, Emil saw several children resting upon it, covered with filthy blankets. His heart started to race, and nervously he pulled the blanket back.

  A pistol shot cracked, and with a scream, all about Emil scattered.

  "Andrew, stop them! Don't let anyone move!"

  Andrew could hear the terror in Emil's voice.

  Already some of the peasants were running away, looking back at Emil as if he had gone mad.

  "Stop them, stop them!" Emil screamed.

  Andrew pulled his pistol and pointed toward the fleeing Suzdalians. Most of them stopped, putting up their hands, or dropped to the ground. Panic-stricken, the others continued to run from the Yankees, who had apparently gone insane.

  Emil came running up to Andrew's side just as he fired several warning shots, but already the terrified men and women were over the hill and gone.

  Frightened, Andrew looked back at Emil.

  "It's smallpox," Emil whispered, his eyes wide with terror.

  "I tell you, it could kill half the people in this city," Emil said desperately.

  "But this thing," Casmar said, obviously confused, "this thing you call innock . . ."

  "Inoculation. It'll make people sick for only a little while. I
must warn you that maybe some will die from it, maybe even a couple of hundred, but if we don't do it, hundreds of thousands will die and the Tugars will finish off the rest."

  "So you are asking me to tell the people that this inoculating is a good thing, even though it might kill them?"

  "Yes," Emil said desperately.

  "We have lived here for uncounted generations without this inoculating thing," the priest said quietly.

  "And you've also lived under the Tugar yoke, and I daresay with regular rounds of plague, typhoid, and God knows what else. If I had more time I could guarantee the inoculation, but we'll have to take it from the dead scabs of those Wanderers who already have it."

  "You are telling me that you wish to push these dead scabs into our people, and that will protect them?"

  Casmar came to his feet as if the audience were at an end.

  "Andrew, show him your arm," Emil said quickly.

  Andrew stepped forward and with the doctor's help rolled up his sleeve.

  "I had this inoculation," Andrew said. "The doctor gave it to me himself when I joined the army."

  "And this made you better?" Casmar asked.

  "I was sick for several days, but nothing more than when you get a slight fever. But he is telling the truth, your holiness. The Wanderers we have in quarantine beyond the city are carrying smallpox with them. Apparently they're spreading it ahead of the horde. Several people who were exposed to it ran away, and we don't know who they are.

  "I'm telling you, your holiness, if you don't help us, within weeks this city will be a charnel house, I promise you that."

  "But this thing—the people might say it is a devilish plot to make them sick."

  "He is telling the truth, your holiness," Kathleen said, stepping forward to speak. "I am a healer the same as Dr. Weiss. You know that the two of us worked in the hospitals to save hundreds of your people after the fight to free the city. We could not lie about such a thing."

  Casmar shook his head in confusion.

  "I believe you," he said, looking straight at Kathleen, "for I have heard the nuns of our order speak of you as a good and holy woman. But the people, they will not believe."

  "If you tell them to, they will," Emil said.

  "But when some of them die they will claim that the church has misled them once again. I am trying desperately to repair the damage done by Rasnar and the prelates before him. I want our church to help the people in this world, and not just fill them with promises of the next.

  "Remember, though, that there is another prelate even now in Vazima, and I have to contend with that. The moment one of our people dies from this thing you wish to do, Igor will thunder from the pulpit against me."

  "Let him thunder," Emil cried, "but if he does not let his people get inoculated as well, the proof will be obvious in a matter of weeks."

  "You wish to do this same thing to the people of Vazima?" Casmar asked.

  "I'm dedicated to saving lives," Emil said quietly. "I was hoping you could arrange a truce, and I could train some people from that city and save the rest of Rus as well."

  Casmar looked at Emil with amazement. Since the great division there had been occasional skirmishes between the border watchers of the two sides, but no contact beyond that, other than the steady trickle of refugees who continued to stream eastward, believing as the months passed that it was better to take their chance with the Tugar pits than to die beneath their arrows and swords.

  "I will think upon this," Casmar said quietly.

  Frustrated, Emil sat down.

  "There's the other problem now as well," Andrew said. "I'm afraid that word has already spread of the advance guard of Tugars, and the city's in a near-panic. What do you think they represent, your holiness?"

  "Usually they first send the Namer of Time, a year before the arrival of the horde. About three months before the arrival of the horde the chooser comes. It is he who counts the amount in the warehouses, and under his guidance the selection is begun."

  "Then it is not the main body of the horde approaching?" Andrew asked.

  "I believe not," Casmar replied cautiously.

  "Most likely they're nervous about our being here," Andrew said, looking over at Hans. "If I were their leader I'd send up a reconnaissance in force along with this chooser to check things out."

  Andrew settled back in his chair.

  "At least five hundred, I'm willing to bet, more likely a thousand," and Hans nodded in agreement.

  "Why's that?" Casmar asked.

  "Good tactics," Hans said. "That Namer fellow got a good estimate of our size. Figures if we're still here, two-to-one odds should clean us out, and prevent any trouble for the rest of the horde. I'd make it a thousand."

  "It's important they don't see anything here," Andrew said. "The farther forward we meet them the better.

  "Hans, what've we got ready for action?"

  "Precious few, colonel. There's the 35th Regiment, of course, and one regiment of Suzdalians fully equipped, but still only partially trained."

  "Artillery?"

  "Five guns for the Suzdalian first battery," Hans replied. "That's it so far."

  "And O'Donald's away with the Ogunquit," Andrew said, as if to himself, "leaving us only two Napoleons."

  "That's all we've got, sir."

  "All right, Hans. The 35th and 1st Suzdalian to be formed up at dawn, along with both batteries.

  "Where do they usually come first?" Andrew said, looking over at Casmar.

  "Down the river road."

  "There are a couple of passes farther up," Andrew said meditatively. "I've checked the ground over myself. Nice bottlenecks—the perfect place to pen them in.

  "Get the men formed, and have Kal come with me. I want our leader to see what this new army can do."

  Reining in his mount, Qubata looked suspiciously at the low-lying hills ahead.

  Everything felt wrong. They had passed dozens of Rus villages in the last two days, and not a single cattle was in the fields. The few he had seen fled at their approach.

  Where were the nobles to keep their people working in the fields? Yet the fields were well tended. In one of the empty villages he had stepped into a barn. There was a strange device within it, a machine that looked like two great wheels set nearly two arm lengths apart. The wheels were tied together by six long blades. Curious, he had pushed the device, and the blades turned, grating against another blade set across the bottom of the device.

  It appeared to be some sort of cutting machine, but for what he was not sure, and that made him more nervous as well, and had been troubling his thoughts ever since.

  Never had he seen such a machine. Could this be a device of the ones called Yankees?

  One of his scouts came galloping back up the road toward where the column waited.

  "The road ahead is clear, my commander," the courier shouted, reining in his horse.

  Qubata looked back at the long column behind him. He knew that his warriors were viewing his caution with open disdain. More than once in the last day he had heard a comment from behind his back, saying that he was so old that his brain was becoming that of a frightened child.

  "Are you sure you saw nothing?" Qubata asked.

  "I have reported all that I've seen," the scout replied, and the warrior looked at him darkly.

  "Did the rest of your command fan out to either side of the road?"

  "As you commanded."

  There was a restive stirring behind him.

  He could not hesitate, not here. If he delayed any longer and indeed there was nothing farther ahead, what respect he had left would be finally lost.

  With a grunt of disdain he urged his mount into a trot, signaling for the rest of the column to follow.

  The host moved down the road, past yet another abandoned village. Again it was the same as before, the crops well laid out, shimmering beneath the summer sun, but not a single cattle in sight. On the road he started to notice footprints of cattle. Could
it be they were simply fleeing before his approach?

  The tree-clad hills to his left marched downward, narrowing the valley, pushing them in closer and closer to the broad muddy river on the right. He did not like this region; he preferred the open steppes. But the great inland sea, and the river that fed it, required them to swing far northward for several days' march into the edge of the great forest, until a ford could be reached sufficient to cross the great host. The trees closed around them, making him feel tight, uncomfortable.

  Going through the first pass, he looked about nervously. A small trail cut away from the main road heading up into the hills. Qubata reined his mount in and beckoned for the scout, while the rest of the column thundered past.

  "Did you send someone up that trail?"

  "As you told me to," the scout said, his disdain becoming more and more obvious.

  Qubata looked at the ground, seeing the hoofmarks of the scout, but the road had recently been churned up by many cattle footprints and several wheel tracks, as if from heavy carts.

  "And his report?"

  "He has not yet returned," the scout replied coldly.

  "What?"

  "They are only cattle, my great general," the scout retorted sarcastically.

  There was something wrong. He could feel the hairs on the nape of his neck starting to prickle. With every passing second more and more of his Tugars rushed past, some of them shouting jokes, others exclaiming about the pleasure of entering the cool woods. Magtu, with the chooser riding beside him, trotted by, a taunting look lighting his features.

  "Old one, are you still looking for demons hiding in the woods?" Magtu barked, and the warriors about him laughed.

  Ignoring the taunt, Qubata looked about, hesitating. It most likely is nothing, part of his inner mind kept saying, smarting from the growing lack of respect the warriors showed at his cautiousness.

  But there was something wrong, something wrong here. He had to decide.

  Standing in his stirrups, he held his hand up.

  "Stop the column," he roared.

  The warriors before him started to rein in, those behind pulling off the trail to either side to keep from ramming into the ranks in front.