Men of War Read online

  They would be safe, and ultimately he knew that a man could not ask for anything beyond that, to know that those whom he loved were safe.

  “What are you thinking about?” Jurak asked.

  Hans stirred.

  “My family.”

  “You had a child, I remember that.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they are safe?”

  “You mean did they escape safely with me?” Hans asked, a touch of anger flaring into his voice.

  “No. I know that. I was there, I saw her lead the escape carrying your child. She was brave. To be proud of.”

  Surprised, Hans nodded his thanks.

  “They are safe now?”

  “Yes, as far as I know.”

  “You are lucky.”

  “Why so?” Surprised he turned to look at Jurak. Strange, for a brief instant he had almost forgotten who he was talking to.

  “My home world. My family, parents, the one that I … what you called married.”

  “Yes.”

  “They all died. A type of bomb I pray to the gods is never known on this world. They all died. That was just before I came here.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Jurak looked over at him, surprised. Hans as well felt a mild shock. The two words had slipped out of him so easily. Never did he dream he could feel sorrow for a Bantag. Yet in Jurak’s voice he had sensed the pain.

  There was an awkward moment of silence.

  “Do you have a family here?” Hans asked.

  Jurak shook his head.

  “No. They cannot replace her.”

  “Perhaps someday. I lived alone nearly all the days of my life and did not find her until …” He let the subject drop, given how he and Tamira had met.

  “Perhaps someday.”

  They were approaching the Bantag formation. Hans could see them stirring as they recognized that their Qar Qarth was still alive. Jurak reined in, gaze sweeping the battered ranks.

  “The war is finished,” he shouted. “We withdraw.”

  Excited murmuring erupted. Hans could sense rage on the part of many, but there were others who seemed relieved, nodding, grounding clenched rifles.

  Jurak looked over at Hans.

  “I will order my troops pulled back north of the city at once. Tomorrow, at noonday, let us meet on the rail tracks going north out of Huan. We both have to assume that there will still be fighting until word reaches all, and we can separate from each other.”

  Hans nodded.

  “Noon then.”

  To his surprise, Jurak extended his arm in the gesture of clasping. Hans reached out tentatively, then grasped Jurak’s wrist, and felt the tight grip on his own forearm.

  “No!”

  Hans looked up. A rider, followed by half a dozen, broke out of the ranks and approached. There was something darkly familiar about him, and then the recognition hit, the scarred disfigured face. It was Tamuka.

  “No! That is the path of a coward. Press the fight now and slaughter them all.”

  Jurak drew himself up stiffly.

  “They are between us and the yurts of our clans. In agreement for our ending the war and withdrawing, they will harm no one and let our families live. If this madness continues half a million or more of our sires, females, and cubs will die.”

  With the announcement of that Hans could see that yet more were now glad that it was ended. He suddenly realized that the Bantag had been terrified that over the last day the Chin would even now be swarming southward to initiate a massacre.

  “They have made the gesture of letting our old ones and young live, even though they now have the power to kill them all. We all know that we are powerless to stop them. There is not one more warrior between Xi’an and Nippon capable of resisting them. It will take days to bring down what we have left in Nippon. By then, all our families will have been slaughtered.”

  That admission startled Hans. So it was a bluff. They had stripped themselves bare.

  There was a sidelong glance from Jurak and Hans felt he could almost smile, as if Jurak had finally revealed that he didn’t have a pair of deuces, let alone a full house.

  Tamuka turned to face the Bantags.

  “Fight! Kill them all while there is still time! One more charge, and we break through and slaughter them all!”

  His screams were met with a stirring. More than one again gave himself over to the lust for battle, some raising their rifles in response, shouting agreement.

  Hans could not understand all that was being said, the words were spilling out of Tamuka so quickly, yet he could sense the rage that was out of control. He looked over again at Jurak, who sat motionless. This wasn’t a leader who could win by overpowering. It had to be a display of calm in the face of madness.

  He knew that if Tamuka should somehow win the argument, then it was over. Jurak would die, they would attack in a mad frenzy, and the Chin would unleash a massacre against hundreds of thousands in a final orgy of mutual destruction. Madness, to be so close and then have it all plunged back into madness.

  “Kill them all!”

  The world seemed to be shifting like sand swept away by a tidal wave. The lust was coming back. Jurak sat impassive, undoubtedly knowing he could not shout down the mad leader of the once great Merki.

  “And kill this traitor from another world first!” Tamuka cried.

  Hans barely understood the words, but he recognized the gesture as Tamuka dropped his reins and reached for a saddle-mounted holster. Like a snake striking, the revolver flashed out.

  “No!”

  Hans kicked his own mount forward. He saw the revolver going up, thumb cocking the trigger back. He fumbled with his own holster … and grabbed nothing but thin air. There was a flash memory of throwing it away after firing the last round. Time seemed to distort, he felt his heart thumping over, wondering if it was finally shattering. Or was it fear.

  He saw the gun coming down, Tamuka squinting, one eye half-closed, the other sighting down the barrel, aiming it straight at Jurak. He caught a final glimpse of Jurak, knew the Bantag, at heart, was not a true combat soldier. He was reacting far too slowly, just then recognizing the danger, starting to recoil in anticipation of the crashing blow.

  There was a final instant, a wondering, a sense that somehow this was a vast cosmic joke. This wasn’t Andrew, or Pat, or Emil, or even a simple Chin that he was trying to save. It wasn’t anyone, yet it was, as well, a warrior whom he had learned in the last few minutes to respect. He was someone who had offered an ending to the madness, a way out, a way for Tamira and the baby to live in peace … and that peace was about to die if Jurak died.

  Time distorted, and he knew there was but one last thing he could do. Without hesitating Hans lunged forward across the neck of his horse. He saw the gaping maw of the revolver, the eye behind the barrel, face contorted in a mad scream … and then the flash.

  “No!”

  It was Jurak screaming, as Hans, lifted out of his saddle, tumbled over backwards and crashed to the ground. The dirty yellow-white smoke swirled in a cloud, and through the cloud he saw Tamuka. There was a momentary look of surprise that he had shot Hans, and then, even more enraging, a barking roar of delight.

  Jurak drew his scimitar, blade flashing out, catching the light. He caught a momentary glance of those watching. This was now a blood challenge for control of the Bantag Horde. He raked his spurs, the pain in his leg forgotten. His mount leapt forward.

  Tamuka, thumb on the hammer of his revolver, cocked the weapon and started to shift aim.

  Screaming with a mad fury Jurak charged his mount straight into the flank of Tamuka’s horse. The revolver swung past his face, going off, the explosion deafening him, the flash of it burning his cheek.

  Their eyes locked for a second. Even as he started his swing, there was a final instant, a flash of recognition. His rage, a rage which surprised him, for it was a mad fury over what had been done to a human, added strength to his blow.

 
; The look in Tamuka’s eyes turned in that instant to disbelief as the blade sliced into his throat, driven with such force that it slashed clear through flesh, muscle, and bone.

  Tamuka’s horse, terrified as a shower of hot blood cascaded over its back, reared and galloped off, ridden by a headless corpse still showering blood.

  Jurak was blinded for an instant, not sure if he had somehow been wounded after all by the pistol shot. Then the mist started to clear as he blinked Tamuka’s blood out of his eyes.

  He viciously swung his mount around, gaze sweeping the assembly, wanting to shout his rage at them, at all their insanity and bestiality. And in their eyes he saw something that had never quite been there before. It wasn’t just that he was their Qar Qarth. It was that he was their leader. Some went down on their knees, heads lowered.

  Something snapped inside and he screamed incoherently at them, holding his bloody scimitar aloft. More went down on their knees; within seconds all were down, heads bowed.

  He reined his horse around and looked down. Cursing wildly, he swung off his mount. As he hit the ground his broken ankle gave way and with a gasp of pain he went down on his knees. None dared to rise to help him.

  He slowly stood back up and limped the half dozen paces over to where Hans lay. Looking up he saw humans, hundreds of them, running up, led by the dark Zulu. He held up his sword so they could see it, then threw it down by the severed head of Tamuka. The humans slowed, the Zulu turning, shouting a command. They stopped, and, alone, Ketswana came forward.

  Jurak knelt down by Hans’s side, Ketswana joining him.

  “I’m sorry,” Jurak gasped. “And thank you for my life.”

  Hans looked up. Strange, no pain. The dark specter who had trailed his every step across all the years, and all the worlds, had him in hand at last, and, surprisingly, there was no pain.

  Still he wondered why he had done it. Was it because I knew I was dying anyhow?

  No.

  A gallant gesture then? And he wanted to laugh over the irony of it, but no laughter came.

  He saw them gazing down. Jurak was saying something, but he couldn’t hear him. He saw Ketswana, tears streaming down his face. He tried to reach up, to wipe them away, as if soothing a child, but for some strange reason his arm, his hands would no longer obey.

  They were kneeling side by side, and he fully understood what it was he had been fighting for all along, and what he was now dying for. And he was content.

  Then they slipped away … and Hans Schuder smiled as they disappeared into a glorious light.

  * * *

  Exhausted, he stood alone, watching as the sun touched the horizon.

  The last of the gunfire died away and he felt cold, alone, empty. Throughout the long day the square had slowly contracted inward, drawing closer and yet closer after each successive charge until the backs of the surviving men were almost touching.

  The ground was carpeted with the dead and dying, tens of thousands of Bantag and humans tangled together.

  If ever there was a killing ground of madness, this was it. He stood atop the low rise of ground, watching as half a dozen ironclads, the survivors of the daylong fight wove their way up the hill, maneuvering slowly, looking for an open path through the carnage.

  The lead machine ground to a halt fifty yards short of the square, the turret popped open, and he saw Gregory stiffly climb out then half slide, half fall to the ground. He looked at the other machines. St. Katrina? No, he had seen that one blow up … the gentle gardener was dead, and Vincent blinked back the tears.

  Walking like a marionette with tangled strings, Gregory slowly made his way up the hill. The men around Vincent parted at his approach.

  Coming to attention he saluted. Vincent, exhausted beyond words, merely nodded in reply.

  “They’re leaving,” Gregory announced, his voice slurring.

  “What?”

  “What’s left of them, the poor damned bastards. They’re mounting up now, heading north.”

  Even as he spoke there was a ripple of comments along the battered line. Vincent looked past Gregory and saw a lone rider appear on the next rise half a mile away. The Bantag rider stood out sharply against the horizon. He held a horse tail standard aloft.

  He waved it back and forth and Vincent watched, mesmerized. The Horde rider slammed it down, the shaft sinking into the earth. The rider held a clenched fist aloft and he could hear a distant cry, desolate, mournful. Vincent stepped out from the battered square, removed his kepi, and held it aloft.

  The Bantag rider turned and disappeared, leaving the standard behind.

  Gregory came to his side, and Vincent turned to face him.

  “I hope this was worth it,” Gregory whispered.

  Vincent’s gaze swept the wreckage, the tangled mounds of dead. All he could do was lower his head and cry.

  * * *

  “Pat!”

  “It’s started?”

  Instantly, he was awake, sitting up in his cot. All day long he had been anticipating the attack. Praying in fact that it would come, come before someone finally got through from the west with the orders to stand down or he finally made the suicidal gesture and attacked instead. Rumors had been floating through the army ever since Pat had dropped the telegraph lines and all trains from the west had ceased to arrive.

  Only that morning Schneid had come back up to the front, personally bearing a report that rioting had erupted in Suzdal and Roum.

  Rick stood in the doorway of the bunker, the sky behind him glowing with the colors of sunset.

  “Where are they hitting?” Pat cried, stumbling up from the steps and out onto the battlement.

  He was stunned by the silence. There were no guns firing, not even the usual scattering of shots between snipers. Then he heard it, a strange distant keening.

  He stepped up onto a firing step and cautiously peered over. He saw though that men were now standing up, some atop the earthworks, fully exposed, and not a shot was coming from the other side.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “I’m damned if I know. It started an hour or so ago. This weird chanting. I thought they were getting themselves built up for the assault. I figured to let you sleep as long as possible, though, and waited. Well, this chanting kept on going and going and then about five minutes ago I saw the damnedest thing.”

  He suddenly pointed across the river.

  “There, another one!”

  Pat looked, not sure for a moment what he was seeing. It was darker on the far shore, and then he saw where Rick was pointing. Two Bantag were standing, fully exposed. They were holding something. It was a mortar … and they flung it over the side of their fort and down into the mud of the riverbank. And then, without any ceremony they turned and simply walked away.

  All along the riverbank he could now see them, not just a few, but hundreds upon hundreds, climbing up out of the trenches, still chanting, then walking off into the darkness.

  Suddenly a flare ignited on the far shore and in the flickering light he saw a mounted Bantag, war helmet off, white mane catching the light. The Bantag was holding the flare and Pat looked at him mesmerized.

  He felt a strange stirring within, as if this one could somehow reach into his soul and touch his heart. There was no hatred, only an infinite sadness.

  “It’s over,” a voice seemed to whisper inside.

  By the light of the flare he saw a rider moving down into the river, holding a white flag aloft, in his other hand waving what appeared to be a piece of paper.

  “Send someone down to get that,” Pat shouted.

  The rider reached midstream and waited, and a minute later a mounted artilleryman galloped into the shallow river, approached the messenger, and took the paper.

  At the same instant the flare was thrown heavenward. He traced its flight as it bisected the Great Wheel, which even then was rising in the east. It fell into the water, and all was darkness.

  Pat, unable to speak, simply look
ed over at Rick and smiled, though in his heart he sensed, at that same moment, that something was lost forever as well.

  * * *

  Andrew Lawrence Keane, his wife riding beside him, rode into the Great Square of the city. The entire populace was out cheering his arrival, chanting his name, but he ignored the tribute.

  He saw Father Casmir standing on the steps of the White House, and as Andrew reined in his mount, Casmir made the gesture of taking off his skullcap and offering the traditional Rus bow, right hand sweeping to the ground.

  Andrew smiled and dismounted. He started to raise his hand in a formal salute, then remembered he was no longer in the army and instead he simply held it out. Casmir took it.

  “Welcome home, Colonel Keane.”

  Andrew did not know what to say. The courier, a young priest, had arrived at his retreat, a country house on the edge of the Great Forest, near the old Tugar Ford, only that morning. Breathless, he had announced that Father Casmir insisted that he return to the city immediately.

  All Andrew’s questioning would not budge the youth, who insisted he was sworn to a vow of silence. The only news he would divulge was that Kal had emerged from his coma and asked for him as well.

  Leaving the children under the protection of several young men from the 35th who had gone with him into exile, he rode south, back to the city along the old ford road, Kathleen insisting that she come along, too. The ride with the silent priest and Kathleen was a flood of memories … the battles around the Tugar Ford, the first skirmish in the woods against a raid by boyars, the ambush of the Tugar column just north of the city. As they cleared the lower pass he was stunned to see thousands outside the gates, lining the road.

  There had been no cheering, only an awed and respectful silence. As he passed, all offered the old traditional bow of the Rus, bent at the waist, right hand sweeping to the ground. He wanted to ask but sensed all had been told to wait, to let Casmir explain.

  He looked into the eyes of the Metropolitan of the Rus.

  “I will never forget the night that I, a young priest, ran barefoot through the snow to where you and your men were camped below this city,” Casmir began, his voice echoing across the plaza, and Andrew realized that this was all part of some elaborate ceremony.