Union Forever Page 7

  "Then do it!" Muzta roared, coming to his feet. "I choose not to live by the mercy of a Merki. If it is the end of my people, I will face it with sword in hand. If the ancestor gods themselves will not help me, then they can burn in torment as far as I am concerned."

  Jubadi threw back his head and barked out a laugh.

  "Brave words, when you know by my pledge I cannot fight you now. Not until you have safely returned to your people."

  "If you have not decided to slay us, then there is a reason," Muzta replied coldly. "Now speak it. I have ridden fifty days to stand thus before you. I have no desire to stay with you, your people, and these machines a moment longer than necessary."

  "At least you are not broken," Jubadi replied.

  Muzta stood expressionless. If only his hated foe truly knew, he thought inwardly. But moments before as he had watched the Merki envoy die, he had felt envy for him, an inward wish that the burden of his responsibility and the humiliation of having been defeated by cattle could finally be washed away. But then he feared to face his father beyond, for all would know that he, Muzta, had allowed the lowest of races to best him. Death would be no escape. The burden that awaited him there was a terror that haunted him. There would be no escape in this world or the next, and that drove within him a torment that racked his sleep with terror dreams of loathing.

  "Why did you summon me here?" Muzta asked, coming at last to the heart of the matter.

  It had been his hope that somehow the Merki horde would pass to the eastward without pursuing him, then after several years he could swing in behind them, perhaps to forage in their path, perhaps even to reach the Bantag horde. As sworn enemies of the Merki, perhaps the Bantag could reach an understanding with the Tugars. The chant singers told how twenty-two circlings before, the Bantag and Tugars had united in such a way and driven the Merki to near extinction, until at last the two had fallen out over the spoils, with Merki and Bantag uniting against the Tugars to drive them back into their northern realms.

  It was obvious that Jubadi had brought him here to show that the Tugars were trapped, and now lived merely by his whim. With the dreaded Yankee weapons in their hands, all hope was forever gone.

  Jubadi reached out to refill Muzta's cup, and with his own he beckoned toward the row of guns lining the deck of the Ogunquit.

  "With a hundred of those small weapons, you could have smashed the Yankee cattle as they smashed you."

  Muzta sensed a tone of sympathy in Jubadi's voice and looked back at him.

  "Your foolish pride," Jubadi said evenly, almost with a tone of understanding.

  "You were not there,"

  "But I received my reports.".

  Muzta gazed at his old rival sharply.

  "Come now, we each have spies in the other's camp. We disdain them, we hate any that would betray his clan, but you use them too. One of them survived your debacle. You should have listened to your Qubata and not charged headlong, bleeding yourself white. These were not cattle you were fighting, these were men."

  Muzta could not reply.

  "And now I will give back to them a hundredfold what they have done to you," Jubadi snarled coldly. "You left me an ugly mess, Muzta. Think you that I could leave such as they to the north as we rode on eastward? When again we circled they would have armed all cattle, have made all of them into warriors. Remember we of the Chosen Race are few now. For every Merki there are a hundred times that number of cattle. Your Rus were but a minor herd compared to the Khita, the Constan, the Eptans. Think of them united against us. Have you not noticed that even as we devour their flesh, yet with every circling there are more of them, while our numbers stay the same?"

  "It is obvious the pox did not come south."

  "And you should have let it continue to spread!" Jubadi roared, his temper flaring out. "Instead you let the cattle healers move ahead of you. Think, damn you, if your Roum had been weakened you could have fed off them. But no, you could not see that! You let not just one thing spread before you but two, the end to the pox and the knowledge that we could be beaten."

  "If the cattle died, then we would starve, all of us."

  "Better to let them all die than to let them learn they could fight against us. This Yankee thinking is a threat far beyond our empty stomachs. With these," Jubadi shouted, pointing at the guns, "they will finish us, not just Tugars, not just Merki, all of us, and this will be a world of cattle."

  Muzta lowered his head.

  "Then the old ways are finished."

  "Only for the moment," Jubadi replied sharply.

  "Is that it, then, is that why you brought me here, to simply show me the thundermakers and thus demand my obeisance to you?"

  Jubadi laughed softly. "You are impetuous, Qar Qarth of the Tugar horde. I would have expected less talk and more silence from you."

  Muzta bristled inwardly. He knew Jubadi to be right. But all that he had carried had made him more brittle of late. A Qar Qarth must be silent, must spend his words as sparingly as the strength of his warriors. Must hear much and say little. Inwardly he cursed.

  "I wish to make you an offer," Jubadi said quietly.

  Muzta laughed.

  "Against the Bantag in exchange for the safety of my people," Muzta ventured. "Perhaps I should wait and see if Mangu Qar Qarth of the Bantag can make a better offer to me."

  Muzta knew that his words held no weight, did not even begin to touch upon Jubadi's true intent. In his heart he realized that there was a chance in the offing for the Tugar horde after all. The Merki would not strike, at least not yet.

  "Try it," Jubadi retorted sharply. "You would have to move your people more than two thousand miles to the south, across the narrows of the eastern sea, across the front of my realm. If you dared it, my umens would fall upon you and destroy you. Your agreement must be with me, Muzta of the Tugars, or not at all."

  Muzta snarled darkly, outraged at the effrontery of Jubadi for not addressing him as Qar Qarth.

  "I am offering the following," Jubadi retorted coldly. "The Bantag are but the threat of the moment, as has always been the nature of our wars."

  "A war which I have already said you are losing," Muzta stabbed back.

  Jubadi fell silent for a moment.

  "I can still bring you down with me," he said coldly.

  "You need me now, don't you, Jubadi of the Merki?" Muzta snapped.

  Jubadi struggled to control his rage.

  "You have fought with the Bantag for half a circling, and you are losing. This is no raid and counterraid, this is a war for survival. Something is driving them as well, making of this a war not just for sport or for some momentary advantage. They are pressing for some reason to the kill. We, the Tugar horde, gutted you at Orki. Now the Bantag are smelling blood and coming in to finish the kill we started."

  "You do not understand," Jubadi roared, slamming the table with his fist.

  "Oh, I do understand," Muzta growled in reply. "You will first use the cattle to fight the Yankee threat to the north, and at the same time learn their weapon skill. You will annihilate the Yankees using the Carthas. Then you will devour the Yankees and Carthas in turn, take the weapons that are needed, and turn them against the Bantag."

  A thin smile creased Jubadi's features.

  "So why tell me?" Muzta continued. "With that strength I don't see where Tugars fit into your plan."

  "I pledge you freedom of your own realm, the great northern steppe, in return for your alliance now."

  "And if I say no?"

  Jubadi beckoned back to the factory.

  "The power I am forging in there will be turned against you. Cattle have always made us what we desire, even our war bows. Let them now forge new weapons for a new task.

  "They will forge five hundred of those thundermakers for me by the next spring," Jubadi announced proudly, beckoning back to the row of field pieces.

  Stunned, Muzta looked at the guns with envy.

  "And the powder?"

  "More th
an I will ever need. Five hundred of those, and scores of the great guns you saw below the decks. That will be the new source of my power."

  "The small weapons carried by men?"

  "They are useless for my task," Jubadi replied. "Our great bows carry farther. Oh, we will make some for the cattle, to be sure, but not too many, for it will be easy for us to count, to control the great thundermakers, but the small ones are to be feared in the hands of cattle who serve us. That I shall not allow beyond a small force of several thousand.

  "Those who make them, if they please us, we'll keep them; if not, we can still feast upon them later. You, on the other hand, you can starve or you can fight for me. There is no other choice."

  Jubadi reached into a leather case resting against the side of the table and pulled out a map, which he unrolled across the table.

  "You are a season's ride to the east and north of the Carthas," Jubadi started, pointing to an empty stretch of steppe astride what had been the old boundaries of their two realms.

  "My horde is still a season away to the west, our southern flank protected for now by the great stretch of high mountains which here runs west to east. The Bantag keep pressing at the passes and are already racing eastward, attempting to outpace me, to cross the inland sea to the south and then swing north, hoping to block my passage across the narrows. They will be here in a year's time."

  "And you will want me to hold this side of the narrows open when they do so. You don't have enough warriors otherwise."

  "Not if I am to guard the passes, occupy Cartha, and swing north to finish the Yankee city and end their scourge."

  "That is my territory," Muzta said, knowing that his words were hollow.

  Jubadi looked over at him with a sarcastic smile.

  "And besides," Muzta added quickly, "you can send twenty umen against them and still I would not give you an even chance of success. Do you think they have stopped building since last year? Already it is known they have built their fire that rides upon iron strips all the way to the Roum."

  "Remember I am arming cattle to fight cattle," Jubadi replied.

  A madness that will come back to haunt us all, Muzta thought coldly.

  "Within the month we will move against the Yankees and their allies, and not one Merki will need to fight. We have established contacts within the cities of the Rus—there are some who even now do not know that in fact they are serving our plans. The Yankee Tobias is ambitious—he is like the cattle we have always used to rule cattle. Without his kind the world created by our grandsires could not exist. If he succeeds, we will reward him as we always have those who rule in our name."

  "And do you really expect that after we allow cattle to use these new weapons they will quietly give them back to us? Jubadi, remove the blinders of a horse from your eyes. The old ways are gone forever—cattle have slain us, and it will not be forgotten so easily."

  Muzta grimaced inwardly at his own words, but he knew them to be the truth.

  "How else do you propose to destroy those who destroyed you, and now threaten all of the Chosen Race?"

  Muzta was silent. He could see that inwardly Jubadi was right; flame must be used to burn out the flame.

  Muzta looked back down the length of the ship.

  "One of these will not defeat the Yankees." Muzta snapped. "Their army in the fastness of Suzdal will not be reduced by this iron ship. You could land ten umens of cattle against them, all armed, and still the Yankees and their Rus would defeat them. I should know that more than anyone else, Jubadi."

  "There will be more, Tobias told you that. The Yankees have these things that Tobias told me of and you have seen, these fire breathers that move upon iron strips. But we will control the waters. Tobias has devised a plan to use that to our advantage to drag out the Yankees from behind their fortresses and defeat them, perhaps without our even having to fight a battle."

  "So you are offering me terms, then," Muzta replied suddenly, driving the issue to the main point of his concern.

  "There is no choice for you," Jubadi replied. "Join under my banner. If not, despite all that is happening I will hunt the rest of your people down. For you know that I will defeat the Yankees, and then in turn will throw down the Bantag. When that is done, Muzta, I will turn my attention to you. Protect my eastern flank, or die. When the campaign begins against the cattle, I will expect one umen of your warriors to ride to the north upon the other side of the sea, while your other two umens protect the southward marches ahead of me. In return your people may graze upon my eastern lands, may even harvest my cattle to the number of one in twenty."

  Muzta smiled inwardly. He had gotten more than he had ever hoped for. Reaching over to the half-empty jar, he poured the remaining contents into his goblet and Jubadi's. Standing up, he held his goblet high, raising it ceremoniously to the four winds. Jubadi, with a fierce grin, stood and did the same. The two exchanged cups and then drained them.

  The pact had been signed.

  "I just wonder what Keane will do regarding all of this," Muzta said quietly as he sat back down.

  "Keane?"

  "Someone you will find to be rather interesting, my ally," Muzta said with a smile.

  "Sir, give my men three months and they can triple your iron production up to seven, maybe ten tons a day. Your big problem is fuel. Heavy stands of woods are nearly seventy miles from here, and we haven't found any good coal."

  Vincent looked over at Marcus, who shook his head in confusion.

  "Maybe the best bet, once the line.gets here, is simply to bring the coal up from Suzdal. It'd cost a bit, but it'd still be cheaper to make the rails here, where you've got good ore, rather than haul them in five hundred miles as we're doing right now. Once we get rail production going here, I'd be tempted to run a spur line north to the forests. We could use the lumber for building material and rail ties, as well as for fuel for the foundry and for our locomotives."

  "And for us?" Marcus asked suspiciously.

  "Well, figure out a trade for the rails and other material that'll be fair to both sides. By our treaty, the rail line we are running through your territory is the property of the Maine, Fort Lincoln and Suzdal Railroad Company."

  "Of course," Marcus said dryly.

  "Now, don't quote me on this, sir," Vincent said in a conspiratorial whisper, "but if you and your people should form your own railroad charter and run that spur line up to the woods yourself, you'd have a damn nice profit out of it in no time. It'd be cheaper for the company to buy the lumber supplies from you rather than ship it across five hundred-odd miles of track.

  "I'd suggest hiring away some of the Suzdalian road crew bosses to lay it out for you. They could train your people, and with a couple of thousand laborers the line could be surveyed, graded, and laid out before winter. Besides, once you have the skills you'll want to run connecting lines to your other cities and villages as well. Our rail line is already surveyed to continue a straight run toward Khitai, twelve hundred miles to the east. It'll be a project of a couple of years at least, maybe more with some of those high hills. That's all we're legally entitled to run in your territory. Your company could run connecting service out to the rest of your realm—that's quite a few hundred miles of track, but it'll link your territory together. Hook those lines into the MFL&S and trade will increase like anything.

  "You've got copper deposits and tin for bronze, zinc, some excellent wine, and exquisite glassworks, and that oil that you told me bubbles out of the ground near your city of Brindusia has some great potential. We've already tried it as a lubricant on the engines, and some of the boys are already boiling it into kerosene. There's going to be a big market for that.

  "Your people are far better weavers than the Rus. I could bring up a couple of the boys from the 35th who worked in a linen mill and they could help design machines that would give you a real export market in that area."

  Vincent didn't mention the cotton plantations owned by Marcus and the other patricians. That i
ssue was already a sore point between Roum and the Union men, since it was far too similar to the system they had fought a war against back home. It had already been decided by Kal and the members of his industrial committee to withhold information about the cotton gin for now, for with a such a machine the profitability of cotton would skyrocket and make any attempt at social change that much the harder.

  "You certainly have plans for me," Marcus said evenly.

  Vincent, deciding to ignore the sarcasm in Marcus's voice, continued, "Sir, it's a world of trade we're building with this railroad. I want to make sure you have certain advantages, because if you don't there's more than one young capitalist back in Rus who will take it himself."

  "Capitalist?"

  Vincent had heard Andrew talk about the writings of Adam Smith, and wished that somehow a copy of the book had come through with them so that he could translate it for Marcus. There seemed to be just too many things to be done. Here he was a soldier, a political leader, an ambassador, and now an economics teacher.

  "I'll try to explain that later, sir," Vincent said quietly, sensing he was getting too far ahead. "But remember, I didn't tell you any of this."

  Vincent Hawthorne grimaced inwardly at what he had just done. If Ferguson, Mina, and the others ever heard that one of their own had suggested that the railroad's monopoly on construction be broken, there'd be hell to pay. As the first ambassador to the consul and Senate of Roum, he felt, however, that he was simply fulfilling his duty, at least the duty of a good Quaker ambassador who felt that the first formal allies of the Republic of Rus should not be exploited.

  The railroad project had seized his old comrades and the Rus with nothing short of a full-blown passion, which was already transforming all aspects of Rus life. The mandate of the railroad was to continue pushing eastward with the dream of uniting all the former subjects of the Tugar horde into one vast alliance for trade and mutual protection. There was even talk of running another line westward when there was finally a pool of additional workers after the southwest fortifications and the military rail line in that direction had been completed, even though scouting reports indicated that for over a thousand miles the region to the west was nearly a ghost land, so devastating had been the effects of the Tugars and smallpox. Without the railroad and telegraph lines, Rus and all the other peoples of the endless northern steppes would be forever isolated and subject to attack.