Terrible Swift Sword Read online

  "We have seen that they are the same and yet different—some of white skin, others brown, yet others black, their tongues different, their customs different as well. Our grandsires in their wisdom learned to place them about the entire world. The cattle built their cities, which they love to hide within. They brought with them yet other beasts to eat, and planted the fields. Their numbers grew, far faster than our own. Yet we learned something else as well. We learned that their flesh is good, and we came to harvest them along with the food that they prepared for our coming. And most importantly of all, they freed us yet more from labor, which is beneath the dignity of those who are of the Horde.

  "They freed us so we could do that which is most worthy of all who are of the Horde. They freed us from labor, from want of food, so that we could war against each other and thus gain honor."

  He paused for a moment, and saw the self-satisfied nods of agreement.

  "We are fools."

  "You dare to say that before me?" Tayang roared, coming to his feet.

  Tamuka looked about the yurt.

  "All of us—Tugar, Bantag, and yes, my own Merki—are fools!" Tamuka shouted, turning and facing each group with his hand extended, pointing accusingly.

  "Is your dog mad?" Tayang snarled. "Silence him, Jubadi, or I'll do it myself!"

  "For the moment at least, he speaks with my voice," Jubadi replied.

  Tayang shifted uncomfortably, looking over to Muzta for support.

  "Let him continue," Muzta whispered.

  Tamuka looked up at Tayang. The old Qar Qarth cursed softly and then finally nodded.

  "I am not speaking now as Merki," Tamuka said, turning to face Jubadi and bowing with an air of apology. "I speak as one of all the Hordes."

  Muzta looked at Jubadi with surprise. He saw a sharp look of disdain cross the features of the Zan Qarth Vuka, and just as quickly disappear.

  There is tension there between the two, Muzta realized; more than tension, almost a hatred. Tamuka did not seem to notice. He closed his eyes and looked up, as if his gaze could somehow pierce the golden covers of the yurt and reach into the night beyond.

  "There is a distant wind, a memory, a soft calling of what we once were," he whispered. "It is like turning back to one's own youth, to a dream of what was, and what can never be again. It is a chant unto the sky of evening, the breeze sighing through the high grass of summer, the musty smell of the earth in the spring. It is riding alone at night, the great wheel lighting one's path, the endless sea of the steppe rolling on forever before our gaze. To awake before dawn, and to ride up to a high place, and to raise your voice in praise as the sun lifts into the sky, its light flashing across the winter snows, the world turned crimson with flashing fire . . .

  "That is what we are."

  His voice was low, filling the tent. It was as if he chanted the words, and Muzta closed his eyes and flowed away with the words, sharing the memories.

  "It is the moment of the ka, when your gaze lifts up and behold, you are one of ten thousand, riding stirrup-to-stirrup, a vast line sweeping across the steppe, the war cries rising to the heavens, the thundering of the hooves; living or dying does not matter, all that exists is to be there in that moment. And you know that if you should live for five circlings, a hundred years, you will never forget the thrill of that charge.

  "That is what we are."

  He paused, and all were silent.

  "These are the moments we have all shared, it is part of all of us, it is why I can say I speak not as Merki, but as one of all the Hordes.

  "The cattle will destroy all of that forever. It shall never be the same again."

  There was a grumbled response to his words. Muzta felt uncomfortable—he had been lulled by the chant, which now had changed to a cold voice of warning.

  "They have given us the freedom to be such, and now they have the power to take it away.

  "The cattle have changed. They have learned not only to think like us, but beyond us. They will destroy us and this world shall be theirs, if we do not change as well. We must end, at least for the moment, what we are, if we wish to save ourselves. Though you see it without honor, it is the cattle of the north who are the true enemies, what we do between each other is for now without meaning. If we do not settle this issue, in the end it will destroy us, and they, the lowly cattle, will inherit the world."

  There was a low murmuring from the dozens of Qarths sitting beneath the feet of their leaders. Some had grasped the hidden meaning of his words, but only a few; the rest gazed at him in confusion or disdain.

  "For a moment, I found I could listen," Tayang growled. "Now your words are like the buzzing of flies on offal."

  Tamuka waited for the angry retorts to die away.

  "My lord Jubadi is even now building weapons of war. Or should I say, we have cattle who are building them for us."

  "Like your last folly, which they destroyed!" Tayang laughed.

  "I was there and you were not, Tayang Qar Qarth," Tamuka retorted. "I saw what you have only heard. I know what you have not even yet to dream in your darkest nightmares.

  "I saw cattle who fought with a discipline that rivals our own. I saw cattle who charged in to battle, shouting their hatred of us, willing to die, dreaming but to take but one of us with them.

  "I remember a time when one of us alone could have ridden into a city of ten thousand of them and they would have submitted, baring their throats. Now I tell you that in the north they wait with their cannons, guns, ships, swords, their bare hands. If we kill ten of them to our one, still we will lose in the end. Because if their infection of hatred spreads east, south even unto the realm of the Bantag, you too will see the fields littered with the corpses of your warriors. For the seed of the cattle is strong, and they spread about our world by the millions.

  "You say there is no honor to fight them. Listen well to my words, Tayang, all of you. Honor or not, you will be just as dead from their bullets, and they will laugh as they shovel you into the ground."

  He lowered his voice.

  "They will laugh as they shovel our entire race into its final grave."

  Tayang shifted uncomfortably, taken aback and yet unable to respond, for he could see the look in the eyes of his Qarths, his clan leaders, who sat in silence, their attention fixed on Tamuka.

  "Fighting these new cattle is like wrestling with the Ugrasla, the great serpents of your own forests. You grasp them, you think you have held them down, and then they slip through your hands and coil about you.

  "We built the weapons of the cattle, or should I say that we had cattle build them for us, and it took us a year. The Yankees then built weapons as good in one tenth that time, and weapons that were even better.

  "We build a weapon that can shoot flame and lead, killing a man at fifty paces, like the one you saw before this meeting. They then build one that can kill at two hundred, simply by changing the shape of the bullet and cutting grooves inside the barrel.

  "We must learn to build these things on our own, with our own hands."

  "You call for those with the ka to labor?" Tayang snarled. "Perhaps this thing inside you called the tu would be a spirit more willing to do such demeaning labor, but not a warrior."

  And those in the yurt, all except Muzta, nodded in agreement with Tayang's words.

  "We must free ourselves of cattle if we wish to remain free at all," Tamuka replied defiantly.

  "To be slaves digging in the mountains for the black iron, to pour out our sweat by the forges, that is not freedom, that is the life of cattle," Jubadi said quietly, though obviously disturbed by Tamuka's words.

  Tamuka paused, as if searching for the right words.

  "We live without changing, they live in order to change."

  "And you are telling us to change," Muzta said, filling the silence.

  Tamuka nodded in reply.

  "If we wish to survive we must make change a part of our lives, casting aside what was for what is."

  "
Forever?" Muzta asked.

  "At least for now, at least until this thing is settled, but even then it will never be the same again."

  "And why not?" Tayang interjected. "I still do not see it as a concern even for us."

  "I laughed when I first heard of the discomfort of the Tugars," Jubadi said. "My laughter is silent now."

  The Qarths of the Bantag Horde looked up to their lord, waiting for his reply.

  "What is it that you want, then?" Tayang asked, "You who speak for the Qar Qarth of the Merki."

  "Annihilate them all," Tamuka said coldly.

  "Kill all the cattle?" Tayang replied in shock. "You are mad. They raise our food, they make all that we have. They fashion our clothes and armor, they forge our swords, fletch our arrows, and make our bows. They raise the grains, the lower forms of meat that we eat, and they are the noble food that fills our stomachs. If we follow your mad plan, then what are we to eat, Merki? Grass?"

  "Do not slay them, and in twenty years, when we ride again to this region, it will be they who ensure that we will feed the grass."

  Muzta sat back in silence. Until this moment he had thought that the problem that the Yankees had presented could be contained. That in the end, even if it took twenty years of riding yet again around the world, they would return and have their vengeance.

  Yet what would they meet in twenty years? Tamuka now drew the picture in his mind with a clarity that he had once turned to Qubata for. He had seen the Yankee machine that moved upon the land while breathing smoke. He had thought it curious at the time. But with such a thing the Yankees could, in a day, cross a distance that would take a week by horse.

  "This Yankee machine, this machine that moves on land . . ." Muzta said.

  "They call it a 'train,'" Tamuka replied.

  "Yes, a train. If we, all of us, continue our ride eastward, when we return in twenty years they will have built these machines to unite a hundred of their cities against us. That is why it is your concern as well, Tayang. Ignore it now, and when your son brings his horde back to this place, a cattle army as numberless as the stalks of grass upon the endless sea of green will be arrayed against you, their armies moving ten days of ride in one."

  Tayang looked down from his throne at the one Muzta knew must be the heir.

  "Then what do you want of us?" Tayang finally replied.

  "Peace, so that the entire might of the Merki Horde can march against the Yankees in the spring."

  Tayang laughed softly.

  "And in return?"

  "An end to their threat," Jubadi said forcefully.

  Tayang laughed.

  "Am I a fool? What of these new weapons? I have heard how Merki can even fly. What of that?"

  "It is true," Jubadi said. "We can fly."

  There was a murmur of disbelief from the clan Qarths surrounding Tayang.

  "It is true," Muzta replied. "I have seen the sky-riders, machines made by the Merki that can fly."

  "How?" Tayang asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

  Tamuka looked back at Jubadi.

  "One of the Yankee traitors knew the secret of making an invisible air that enables one to float."

  "Wind from his backside, most likely," Tayang said, laughing coarsely.

  Jubadi smiled.

  "A deadly wind that explodes when fire touches it. It is trapped inside a vast tent sewn together into a bag, and when filled it floats away. Beneath the bag we took machines found in the barrows of ancestors from before the circling. The rotted wheels of the carts were removed, and blades that spin in the air were fashioned to push the floating tents of the light air from place to place."

  "The burial carts that move without horses?" Tayang asked.

  Jubadi nodded.

  "You violated the graves of ancestors. It will be your curse," a voice from behind Tayang snarled.

  Jubadi looked at the shaman, waiting for Tayang to discipline one who had not been invited to speak, but the Qar Qarth did nothing. Jubadi bristled at the insult.

  "The curse has struck several," Tamuka interjected. "Their hair fell away, they vomited blood and died. But others have not been stricken, a sign that not all the ancestors are angered, that they are pleased that we use these things to break our common enemy."

  Jubadi stared at the shaman, who made the gesture to ward away evil as he backed into the shadows.

  "With these machines we may fly over the Rus, even to the Roum lands, to spy, to drop weapons that explode. Even now I make more of them and will not stop, for it is the one thing the Yankees have not forged."

  "Yet . . ." Tamuka whispered softly, his voice not heard.

  "The curse will be on you, not I," Tayang said, though it was obvious he was curious to see this strange wonder.

  The shadows in the tent were growing darker, the red light streaming in from the western flap fading away. A high piercing call rose up from outside the yurt, the cry of the watchers, announcing the setting of the sun. All fell silent, the three Qar Qarths rising from their thrones to face west, the Qarths about their feet dropping to their knees in the same direction.

  "O light of the world!" the watchers cried. "Journey now into the night lands of the everlasting sky. Bring unto our sires, and our sires' sires, the words of our praise. Shine thy face upon the land of the dead, and then return in thy glory yet again."

  The last thin shaft of light shimmered on the horizon, spreading out into a broad band. There was a momentary flash of green and all cried aloud with joy, for it was a good sign, a portent of favor to all who saw it.

  The green flash faded away, the voices of the three umens arrayed on the hills rising up in exaltation at the omen.

  The three Qar Qarths turned away as the western flap was closed, and lit torches were brought into the yurt, pushing back the gloom. The circular brazier near the center, where Tamuka stood, was piled high with sweet-scented wood which filled the tent with its smoky perfume. Tamuka looked at it with pleasure. Those who rode the central steppes would go at times for months without seeing a wood fire, cooking with knotted grass, dried dung, or the branches of a thorny bush rich with an oil that caused an acrid, smoky flame.

  Tayang, nodding with satisfaction as if he had somehow caused the omen, sat back down and looked over at Jubadi.

  "You want peace, then?"

  Jubadi nodded.

  "You want me to give you peace, so you can take these cattle weapons, master them, and one day turn them against us."

  Muzta could see the look of exasperation on Tamuka's face.

  "Thinking like that will be the end of us all!" he shouted angrily. "It is the cattle who are the enemy. First it was the Rus, now the Roum, beyond them all the cattle throughout the world will hear of what has happened. Already the vermin who crawl before us, the wanderers, have spread the word of the rebellion a full season beyond our furthest outriders.

  "There is only one answer left. Give the Merki peace, that they may turn their full strength against those led by the Yankees. If that is allowed, we shall slay them."

  He hesitated for a moment, as if knowing the reaction to what he would say next.

  "Then kill every last cattle upon this world. Cleanse ourselves of them. Only then can we return to what we were."

  "Kill our own cattle!" Tayang roared, caught somewhere between rage and incredulous disbelief. "And who will feed us?"

  "We will feed ourselves, as our grandsires did."

  Tayang shook his head.

  "And dig in the dirt! You are mad."

  Muzta could see the looks of agreement on the faces of Tayang's followers.

  "Shield-bearer, you no longer speak what I wish," Jubadi said quietly. "All I ask is peace to bring the Yankees to their knees, to make them again cattle or to slay them, nothing more."

  "I speak as my tu demanded," Tamuka replied, not backing down.

  "Then at least give Jubadi peace," Muzta interjected, before Jubadi and Tayang were diverted by Tamuka's words. "Let him exterminate all t
he cattle who have been infected by these new ways."

  "And what of the weapons? You still have not answered that."

  "When we defeated the Yor we destroyed their weapons," Jubadi said, "for our grandsires knew that the power of such things that could turn another to dust would end us all. We must do the same again. When they are defeated, we will destroy all vestiges of what they are."

  Tamuka looked back at Jubadi.

  "Cattle have come through the Tunnel since the beginning of time. They will continue. And what if they are even more dangerous than the Yankees?"

  "That is not my concern for now," Jubadi replied sharply, the tone of his voice indicating that he would not tolerate such challenge from one who was the not his own shield-bearer, but merely one of his son's.

  "The guarantees?" Tayang replied.

  "Guarantees," Jubadi retorted, looking past Tamuka. "In the spring I wish to ride north with the new guns—forging, even as we speak, the new flying machines—and all my umens and end them once and for all. I will lose many warriors in this, but we have learned much. In the end we will defeat them. Perhaps I should be asking guarantees of you."

  Tayang laughed and shook his head.

  "What do I get for not striking you?"

  "A third of all the guns we make this winter, and all the cattle of Cartha who know how to make such things once the cattle war is done," Muzta interjected, looking over at Jubadi. "Give him that."

  "The Cartha are mine, the guns mine."

  "There will be more than enough of the guns in the spring. Captured Rus, or even the Roum who have learned of these things, will replace whatever Cartha are traded away. When the Yankees are at last defeated, the two of you can agree then to destroy the weapons together, so that we may ride as we once did and fight with bow in hand."

  The two Qarths looked at Muzta.

  "Perhaps it is an idea to start with," Tayang said craftily.

  "None of you have heard," Tamuka said, his voice filled with sadness.

  The three Qar Qarths paused.

  "Chances are we will defeat them, at least for now," Tamuka said, "but all of you still dream that the world will be as it was. You do not see that a war has started which will end only one of two ways. This world will either be a place of the Horde, or it will be of cattle, but never again will it be both. That is what the three of you should be speaking of today."