"Why me, Lord God, why me?" Hammer-of-God Jackson muttered into his new beard. Then: "All right, Lord, I'll take up this cross." Not that he had much choice. The Lord God of Hosts gave you a burden as heavy as you could bear, neither more nor less. You carried it to Heaven's gate, or let it crush you down into Hell.
His leg was hurting worse than usual today, and he had the beginnings of a headache.
I've got the grandfather of all headaches, he told himself, looking out over the plain. It was lower here, despite the mountains; they were still heading east, but the southwestern turn to the Shangri-La Valley and the passes was close. Lower, warmer, and wetter than the high steppe; the grass was nearly knee-high before the advancing horde, and it left no bare ground between tufts. Incredibly rich pasture, for the steppe. That was fortunate, because there must be—
Two hundred thousand fighting men, Hammer-of-God thought. Almost all of them mounted, although there were all kinds of men down to primitives dressed in land gator armor and swinging stone hammers. Plus the warriors' wagons, their yurts, their women and children, their remounts and muskylopes and yaks and sheep and the odd herd of longhorn cattle. The dust was like a stormcloud above them as far as he could see, right to the horizon. Dun-colored masses of them, straggling clots, or here and there the geometric regularity of a disciplined column. Reddish light winked back at him from helmets and odd bits of armor, from the steel of lances and the burnished brass ornaments of a clan chief, from a woman's dowry-necklace of silver coins. The sound of their hooves and feet and voices rumbled endlessly, like distant spring thunder that never ended.
Two hundred thousand fighting men at least. Perhaps one tenth of all the males on the steppes of Haven between sixteen and sixty. Far and away the largest army the planet had ever seen—and more pouring in every cycle. Thousands upon thousands more. There might be half a million by the time they reached the Citadel. And we'll need every one.
"Why me?" he asked again, a little more loudly. The seven were in charge, but he was their military advisor.
Barak bar Heber laughed at his back, grinning unrepentantly when Hammer-of-God wheeled toward him.
"You've been around us Bandari far too long," Judge Chaya's son said, grinning at him. "Picking up bad habits. We're the ones who argue with God—it's a tradition."
The Atlas reared at his back, baring white fangs at heaven; it was Dimday, only the huge reddish globe of Cat's Eye above and the sister-moons floating about it in the dark blue sky. The Pupil was centered today. It seemed to leer down at him, watching like the Lidless Eye of the Dark Lord himself. Eager to see these fools break their hearts and bones against the walls of the Citadel, die beneath the weapons of Its chosen people.
"You'll argue with anybody," Hammer replied, clapping him on the shoulder.
Kemal, heir to the tribe that had been Juchi's, leaned both hands on the pommel of his saddle and looked down at the horde. "Magnificent," he said. "Not since the time of legends has such an army gathered."
Hammer-of-God looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Juchi's tribe had been allies of the Pale for a long time—tributaries now, since the Bandari rescued them from chaos and hungry neighbors after Juchi died. Kemal's father-in-law Tarik Shukkur Khan led them; but Kemal had chafed under the velvet bonds of the protectorate. And he was no fool . . .
"I am surprised," he said, confirming Hammer-of-Gods estimate, "That the Sauron bases on the way have not given us more trouble. There is what, a thousand of the enemy in each? Three thousand then, not counting Quilland which we passed early in the jihad."
Hammer-of-God smiled, and answered with a question: "How much stronger is an army of ten thousand than one of a single thousand?"
"Ten times?" Kemal said, surprised and suspicious. Most warfare on Haven was raiding parties of a few hundred, at that.
"No, over one hundred times more powerful. The strength of an army increases by the square of the numerical superiority, other things being equal. Archer Jones, a great warrior and scholar of Ancient Terra, writes thus in the books that Piet preserved; and I've found it to be true. So even if one Sauron equals ten or twenty or thirty ordinary men . . ."
Kemal nodded thoughtfully; he detested Hammer-of-God, but had never made the mistake of underestimating him. "Still, why haven't they done something?" he said. "We bear down on the Citadel, the heart of their people upon Haven."
Barak smiled unpleasantly. "Creeping feudalism," he said in Bandarit. Kemal's command of that language was good, but not complete. When the nomad prince raised his brows, the Bandari amplified:
"What happens when a khan sends a garrison and a relative to govern an outlying province?"
"Ah, so." Kemal snorted understanding. "In a generation, the outlying province becomes independent once more—under the son of the kinsman sent to command it."
Barak continued. "Back on Old Sauron, they had all the technology of the Ancients. Men could fly from one side of a world to another in hours, so a whole world could be commanded as a clan chief rules his yurts. Here even the closest of the northern Bases is months of travel across bad steppe country. The Bases on the Great Northern steppe were founded back in Diettinger's time, during the Wasting. Their garrisons have been native-born for three hundred and fifty T-years. The Bases are their homes, the homes of their children, their wives, their fathers since the time of legends."
"And however fearless they are as single warriors, they won't risk the survival of their true homelands," Kemal said.
Hammer-of-God touched reins to his horse's neck, and the three leaders rode slowly down the hillside, their mounts picking their way carefully between stones. Iron and leather clattered on their weapons and harnesses. Both younger men listened carefully as Hammer spoke:
"Angband was the furthest base westward—they paid heed to the Citadel only in name. Quilland is a little more under the Citadel's thumb. Dyar more so, and so on as you move east. But none of the Bases on the High steppe is under the Citadel's real command, the way the settlements down in the Valley are. You can't move armies across the steppe, not unless whole peoples move as we are doing now—and behind us we leave desert where a bird would have to carry its own rations. As long as the Bases know we're moving on, they won't strike at us with any force."
He looked up, met Kemal's narrow black eyes. "And you, Kemal bar Kaidan, are learning rapidly."
A complex of emotions ran through Kemal's eyes, although his face was expressionless. His father Kaidan had died at Hammer's hands; but, before his death, Kaidan had ruined the tribe after Juchi left, and Kemal himself had abandoned him; his uncle Tarik Khan had called in the Pale to save the remnant.
Kemal bar Kaidan. That was the Bandari patronymic; bar for a son, with the father's name, bat for a daughter, with the mother's. His tribe were subject-allies of the Pale now, but the Pale didn't like ruling foreigners. Many Bandari had married into his people, wedding the widows and orphaned daughters of men slain in the civil wars and invasions after Juchi's fall . . . and, not incidentally, securing their grazing and water rights. He himself had spent much time in the Pale, and his young sons attended school there. The kapeteins were famous for their patient planning. His descendants could be aluf kumpanie—chiefs of a Bandari clan, not khans of a subject tribe. Could be . . . and while he chafed at lost independence, to be a clan chieftain in the Pale, his people with an equal say in the election of the kapetein . . . that was wealth and power beyond most steppe chieftains' dreams.
He nodded acknowledgement of the point. It was something to consider.
"Well, the meeting won't wait," Hammer said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Let's go and look confident for the hotnots."
Kemal did not quite stiffen. That word would be an insult . . . if the two men considered him a hotnot. He knew enough of Hammer-of-God Jackson to know that no insult was meant.
"So? You aren't confident?" Barak said.
"Not every Christian's a bliddyful," Hammer replied dryly.
Castell City lay at the confluence of the Jordan and the Alf, where they carne together to form the Xanadu. Because of its location, it had been an important trade center since CoDominium days. The Dol Guldur had struck it with fusion fire during the Wasting, but as soon as men could come there without dying of radiation sickness, they'd begun to rebuild. These days, they sold little lumps of greenish glass as amulets to give strength and courage. A few were even genuine souvenirs of the blast.
They had sold such amulets, Sharku thought. Now, though his two Regiments were still a good many kilometers outside Castell City, he saw the smoke of its burning rising high into the gray-blue sky of Haven. No nuclear blast had raised this smoke, but it was no small conflagration, either.
Sharku turned angrily to Mumak. "Fire. What has Lagduf been playing at back here?" he demanded. "He's had enough time to pacify the city."
"It's a big place, Castell City," Mumak said placatingly, "and city fighting is hard work. Too bloody many places for rats to hide in and skulk through. Then they jump out and try and bite you in the ass."
"It's not sport any more," Sharku said. "We don't have time to play games with the barbarians."
"Who could have thought the cattle could fight like this?" Mumak said. "Using the rebellion in the west to pull us away from the real action—" Admiringly, he added, "You saw that coming, when nobody else did."
"I saw it. No one would listen."
"They listen now," Mumak said. "At least these do." He gestured to indicate their Regiments. "Even Ghâsh listened."
"Now we have to convince the Citadel—"
"If we're lucky. Maybe they already know. They'll listen, Sharku. They don't know how to deal with this. Ghâsh didn't know. I don't know. But you do."
And if I don't? No time for doubts. Any hesitation would lose everything.
There was gunfire ahead. From behind a stone fence a few hundred meters off to the north, somebody shot at a soldier with a black-powder weapon: not one of the rifled breech-loaders the Bandari had introduced to the valley, but a local taking a potshot with his hunting musket. Sharku's head whipped in that direction. A couple of troopers leaped the fence and killed the man before he could reload and shoot again. Sharku couldn't tell whether they used knives or rifle butts or bare hands, but they didn't waste ammunition on him. One of them jumped up onto the fence and waved to show the job was done. "Any of ours hurt?" Sharku shouted to him.
"No, sir," the soldier answered. "You couldn't hit your mother across the table with one of those lousy guns." He jumped down and loped east again.
"Not even a delay," Mumak said. "No problem."
"Not this time," Sharku said. "But put enough lead in the air and some of it lands where you don't want it to."
The pop-pop-pop of small arms sounded unduly cheerful as Sharku's men made their way into Castell City. Some of it was more black-powder fire, some short, purposeful bursts from the soldiers' assault rifles. Mumak looked around in awe at the wreckage. "They've made a desert out of this place," he said. "Maybe old Lagduf hasn't been farting around after all."
"They may have made a desert, but they haven't turned it into peace," Sharku said. "That was the point of the exercise." The devastation was impressive. Dupar street, down which the regiment cautiously advanced, boasted hardly one building that hadn't been damaged by fire. Bullets pocked surfaces that hadn't burned. The air stank of burnt wood and burnt meat—and dead meat that hadn't burned, now going high.
A couple of swarthy kids, almost man-high, in layer upon layer of rags came up out of the basement where they'd been sheltering. They kept their hands high and well away from their bodies—they'd learned that soldiers shot first and didn't bother with questions afterwards. "Food, sirs?" one of them whined.
Mumak reached over his shoulder into his pack, pulled out a fat chunk of smoked muskylope haunch, and tossed it to the youngsters. They salaamed in abject gratitude, then snatched up the meat and disappeared before anyone else should spot their prize. "You're too soft," Sharku said, not for the first time.
"Can't be a herdsman without cattle," Mumak answered with a shrug. "I just hope they don't fight over it."
Weary, grimy soldiers cheered the new arrivals. "We get some relief now?" one of them called hopefully. "I've had enough of grubbing through the ruins, I have."
"We'll all be out of the ruins soon," Sharku said, which made those who heard him cheer louder. To Mumak he added, more quietly, "That doesn't mean it's over, not by a long shot. It just means we have to do the fighting where it really counts, not waste ourselves here."
The one good-sized building in the town that seemed to have survived more or less intact was called, for no reason Sharku understood, the Club. Lagduf made his headquarters there; the place also served as infirmary, canteen, and as barracks for a good part of the regiment. Sharku thought that was putting too many eggs in one basket, but Lagduf had gotten away with it. To give him his due, he did keep sentries spread out well beyond the range of any weapons the barbarians were likely to be able to bring to bear on the Club. Any merely normal man who thought he could sneak through that ring would merely get his funeral in a place he didn't expect. Inside the building, Sharku greeted several men he'd trained with. A good-sized crowd gathered around him as he explained his mission to the local commander.
For a soldier, Lagduf was on the stocky side, with shoulders that made Sharku glad he didn't have to wrestle against him. He greeted Sharku with a nod and a sharp question: "Have you come to help us put this miserable place in order? We could use three times the manpower we have, I tell you that for a fact. The last time I saw you, you were a Chief Assault Leader. Come up in the world?"
"Yes, sir," Sharku answered. No harm in recognizing Lagduf's seniority. "We're just here in transit—we've been ordered directly back to the Citadel. They're under attack there, too. The Bandari are behind it. They armed the farmers in the west end of the Valley, and they've set all the plains tribes in motion, too. It would be a wonderful piece of strategy, if it weren't aimed straight at our heads."
Lagduf let out a dismissive snort. "Cattle against the Citadel? Let them come. It saves us the trouble of going out onto the steppe to cull them."
"It's not like that." Sharku wanted to kick the Regiment Leader—or else pound his own head against the ferroconcrete wall. He'd run into the same blind spot, the same unwillingness to take the cattle seriously, when he'd argued against Carcharoth before the Council. "The Bandari are dangerous. It's not just that they have better technology than the rest of the folk out there beyond the Shangri-La Valley; they have an ideology, too, and a sense of history. They plan for the long term, and they've been setting this up for a long time. The regiment I'm taking back could use all the help it can get. I wouldn't mind having yours along, too."
"Not bloody likely," Lagduf said with another snort. "We have our hands full trying to hold this place down, I tell you. When we first got here, we couldn't go down the street without somebody taking a potshot at us. We've put a stop to most of that shit, but we've had to pull the town down around the cattle's ears before they'd start paying attention to us. If we pull out now, it'll all flare into rebellion again, soon as we're gone."
"That's not the point—sir," Sharku said. Lagduf was a good officer of the old variety, good at holding off the enemy, good at enduring the boredom of occupation duty. But no thinker, no strategist. Were there any strategists left among the Race? Am I the only one? "If Castell City rebels again, that's a nuisance, and we'll have to spend some time and some blood putting things to rights. But if the Citadel falls—if the Citadel falls, we might as well be cattle ourselves, because we can't possibly get back all the things it has in there: more toys than we've worried about in generations, unless I miss my guess. The way the Bandari have outmanipulated us so far, we'll need every one of them before the end, too, or I'm dead wrong—which is just what I'm liable to be."
Lagduf turned to his own men, who had drawn up behind him to listen. "Did you ever hear such an alarmist?" he said, pitching his remarks to them and not to Sharku. "When have cattle beaten the soldiers?"
"Sir, if cattle hadn't beaten us, we wouldn't be in exile on Haven now—we'd be ruling the Sauron state out there beyond the stars," Sharku said. "Where we belong now!"
Lagduf's glare was venomous.
Sharku turned to address all the soldiers. "The Citadel is in danger, I tell you. I can use every man possible at my back. What you're doing here is slapping a bandage on a scratch, nothing more. What you need to be doing is turning aside the stroke aimed for the heart. Are you with me, soldiers of the Race?"
"You are insubordinate." Lagduf said in a voice like ice. "I realize you have been under stress, so I will give you a moment to recognize that fact."
Discipline and subordination ran deep in soldierly training. Almost, Sharku apologized to his superior and let Lagduf retain control of the situation. But Sharku had seen too many shortsighted men put the Race into the predicament in which it had now found itself. He had protested; they had overruled him; he had obeyed. All at once, obedience snapped.
"I am going on to the Citadel with my Regiments," he declared. "I will gladly accept all volunteers from forces in Castell City to accompany me." He looked at the soldiers crowding round. "Would you gamble the Citadel and everything in it? And for what do you risk everything we have left in this world? You can go on as you have, slaughter cattle until you're no better than cattle, but you doom the Race!" He raised his voice, as if he were a nomad chief haranguing his men, whipping them up into a frenzy before he took them out to fight. "Who's with me? Who will come to save the Race, now, when it must be done?"
Lagduf folded his arms across his broad chest and gazed scornfully at Sharku. He plainly expected only silence from the soldiers of his regiment. "I'll report you for this, stress or no stress," he snarled. "If you live, you'll get the shit detail to end all shit det—"
"I'm with you!" An Assault Leader stepped forward. "I'm with you, sir. What we're doing here, it's just a waste of time."
"Muzgash, you'll pay for that!" Lagduf yelled.
Muzgash stood like a rock.
"Me too," Mumak said "But you knew that."
Another Assault Leader came out, with a dozen behind him. "We're with you." Then Vizgor, Assault Leader of the scout detachments. "Count us in. If we don't take care of the Citadel, we can kiss our ass goodbye."
"That's right," another man said, saluting Sharku. "I'll come along." And more, voices blending together too fast to count. "To the Citadel!"
"You've got 'em," Mumak said cheerfully as soldier after soldier came over to Sharku's side and abandoned the commander under whom they'd served. "About time some people get to hear straight talk, don't you think?"
"Time and past time," Vizgor shouted. "We're all with you, Sharku."
Five of Lagduf's men ran outside to shout word of what was happening to the men on patrol. Soldiers of the First Regiment, Sharku's first command, ran into the building. They brandished the rifles they'd taken from the Sons of Liberty. "This is what we're fighting! And the only one who knew it was Sharku!" a soldier shouted.
And more came in, carrying their own weapons. The word went through the Regiments. Sharku was in command. And death to anyone who didn't like it.
Lagduf wasn't finished, but he was careful not to draw a weapon. "This is my command!"
"No more," Mumak said.
"By what right?" Lagduf demanded. "By what authority?"
"It's in Mumak's magazine," Sharku said "And if you're lucky I'll be able to keep it there."
Mumak grinned and stamped his assault rifle butt against the floor. Another soldier took that up, and another, until a hundred rifles drummed a rhythm of war and death.
"I have orders," Lagduf said. "How can I carry them out if you steal my men?"
"Your orders are changed," Sharku said. "They were bad orders to begin with. You fight well, Regiment Leader, but what good is it to carry out the wrong orders? I bear you no bad will, Lagduf. This world is changing, and it's past time for it. We're the future of the Race. Join us."
The drumming rifles were louder now. "Who appointed you Threat Analysis Computer?" Lagduf demanded.
Sharku swept his hands in a wide gesture to indicate Mumak and the shouting soldiers. "They did."
Mumak held up his rifle. The drumming ceased. "Lagduf, the TAC didn't see what was happening. No one in the Citadel understood what the Bandari were up to. The TAC, nor no one in the Citadel understood the connection between the rising in the west and the attack from the steppe on the Citadel. Sharku did! And no one listened, and we're paying the price for that. From now on we trust Sharku!"
"Sharku!" the soldiers shouted.
"Join us," Sharku said. "Join us, Lagduf."
Lagduf stared at him. He'd clearly lost. It was almost unthinkable: soldiers did not talk that way to their superiors. But Sharku just had, with the troops behind him.
"Where is Deathmaster Ghâsh?"
"Cleaning up in the lower Valley. I have his approval."
"As if you needed it," Mumak said. "Come on, Lagduf, flip that land gator, or spear it. But decide fast."
"We'll go to the Citadel," Lagduf said. "I agree. But I'm senior! It's my command," But his voice failed him, and he heard laughter.
"Gather your men," Sharku ordered. "You can pick a hundred to hold here. I'm taking the rest with me. If a hundred soldiers can't do that, the Race is too far gone to be saved." He raised his voice. "Mumak, take charge. I want these Regiments ready to march in four hours."
"Sharku!" Mumak shouted.
The shout was echoed in the room, then outside.
"Sharku!"