Breakfast was astonishing. Well, we did just overrun a supply dump, Raj thought, looking over the collection of delicacies.
He spooned up more potted shrimp. Peydro Belagez was eating them mixed with candied dates, which was something only a Borderer would do; Gerrin watched him with the horrified fascination of a gourmet, or a priest witnessing blasphemy. The commanders were seated at a long table in the huge pavilion tent that had been the base HQ. The Colonial engineers, left with time on their hands, had gone a little berserk. There were even baths, complete with kerosene-fired water heaters, enough for several hundred men at a time.
The morning air was fresh and hot, still a little smoky with the fires they'd spent half the night putting out. A bugle sounded outside, and a pair of mounted troopers trotted by with a long string of dogs on a leading rein: more of the force's mounts from the site where they'd landed. The barges and rafts were mostly here by now too, grounded on the riverbank or against the stub of the pontoon bridge that still extended halfway across. On the tall flagpole outside the HQ tent the Starburst banner snapped in the breeze.
The commander of the Rogor Slashers went on:
"And they still haven't stopped running, heneralissimo. They've split up into small parties and none of them show fight." Belagez's dark leathery face showed a combination of exhaustion and satisfaction. "Your instructions?"
"Ignore them," Raj said. "They weren't a problem in here, and they're not going to be one out there, either."
He swallowed another mouthful of excellent-quality kave—the Colony sat astride the trade-route from Azania and kept the best for itself—and looked at Suzette. She had peeled an orange and then set it aside untouched, looking a little pale. Damnation. Think about that later.
"Casualties?"
"Less than two hundred," Staenbridge said, sounding slightly surprised. "That's not counting walking wounded fit for duty. We only had twenty dead."
"Most of the live ones will pull through," Suzette added. "There are plenty of medical supplies here, and some excellent Colonial doctors, besides our own. Working under guard, of course."
"Prisoners?"
Kerpatik thumbed through his lists. "Over two thousand, heneralissimo. That is, two thousand military personnel. There were substantial numbers of camp followers here as well. The families of the soldiers have mostly fled. The, ah, commercial elements—" he rubbed thumb and the first two fingers of his hand together, "—they care little about the coinage as long as the metal is good."
Raj nodded. Where you had a military base, you got knocking-shops. He'd be willing to bet there was alcohol for sale too, Koranic prohibitions or not.
"Jorg, issue Guardia armbands to some of your footsoldiers and get that under tight control. We're still in the field, even if we've captured all the comforts of home. Let's not let the troops relax just yet."
"What about the prisoners?"
"Strip them down to their loincloths and let them go; tell them to start walking south. Now, we captured a good many documents here, including the daily logistics summaries."
Several men exclaimed in delight. That meant they would know the Colonial army's situation in detail, right down to the names of the units and their muster strength.
"Evidently they've been having problems getting the supplies from the railhead to the siege lines outside Sandoral—plenty here, but they're short of draft oxen and fodder over on the west bank."
Dinnalsyn nodded. "They were trying to use locomotive engines to rig up a couple of spare pontoons as steam tugboats, to pull raftloads up to Sandoral," he said. "I had a look; it would have worked, more or less. Whoever was in charge knew his business."
Raj nodded acknowledgment. "In any case, the Colonials have virtually nothing in the way of reserve with their field army. They were living from day to day on what their convoys brought in, once the countryside was laid waste. Now, Messers, here's what we'll do. Jorg, you're in charge here. How many dogs did we capture?"
Muzzaf Kerpatik looked up from a mass of papers. "Over twenty-five hundred, not counting gun teams, sir," he said.
"Good. Jorg, I'm leaving you all the infantry. Mount half of them—the best half—on the captured dogs. You'll also have, hmmm, Poplanich's Own and the 21st Novy Haifa for stiffening. And half the field guns. Move them north in parties of a couple of hundred; keep in continuous contact. Your objective is to prevent Tewfik from making any lodgment on the east bank. Shouldn't be difficult; there isn't much in the way of boats over there, and it would take weeks to put enough material together for another bridge. Which they couldn't build in the face of our artillery, anyway—but keep a sharp lookout; we don't want to get as overconfident as the previous tenants."
"Patrol the vicinity?"
"Vigorously. The infantry in good spirits?"
"Any better and they'd want to march on Al Kebir, mi heneral. Their tails are up."
"Deservedly so. Now, I'll take the rest of the cavalry, and the guns, over to the west bank. There are probably still intact supply trains on the road north, and I want to sweep those up immediately."
He rose, picking up his sword belt from the back of the chair. "I want to be on the move in no more than five hours. Tewfik is crazy like a ferenec, and Ali is just plain crazy; let's not give them time to think up any way out of their predicament. Waymanos."
"That will not work, Ali my brother," Tewfik said.
His voice was dangerously calm, and he left out the honorifics. Ali turned his head slowly, the great ruby that held the clasp of his turban winking in the stray beams of light that came through ventilation slits in the ceiling of the pavilion high above.
The nobles and officers sitting on cushions around the carpet looked at Tewfik as well, mostly with the same expression they might have used if a man kicked a carnosauroid in the snout.
"Dog will not eat dog," Tewfik went on. "This has been proven many times, as any fool of a soldier would know. Rather," he corrected himself, "most dogs will not. Nine in ten. So we will lose all our cavalry at once, and cannot preserve a portion of our mobility by sacrificing the rest."
Ali's face went a mottled color. It had been a very long time since anyone had dared to call him a fool to his face, even by implication. Even his brother.
"Go!" he said, pointing with a trembling hand. "You are dismissed from the durbar. Return when you learn manners!"
Tewfik rose and bowed deeply, hand going to brow and lips and chest; the other clenched on the plain, brass-wired hilt of his scimitar.
His officers fell in about him. That brought another round of silent glances around the council carpet. It was also unheard-of for men to leave the Settler's presence without word. And Ali looked suddenly thoughtful, conscious of the gaps. The nobles remained, and the heads of the religious orders . . .
In the harsh sun outside, Tewfik halted, beyond earshot of the mamluks who stood like ebony statues around the Settler's tent.
"How long?" he said, to an elderly officer with a green-dyed beard.
"There is no reserve. None. The camp is on quarter-rations, but we have fifty thousand men, as many dogs, and twenty thousand camp followers here. There was no food to be had in Sandoral, none at all. I have set men to fashioning nets, and we may gain a little fish by trolling the river; but the kaphar hold the fort you planted on the eastern bank opposite the city, and the guns there command much of the water surface. There will be hunger by sundown, starvation by tomorrow's night. Our dogs will be too weak to carry men in three days, and dying in six. By then the men will be dying as well."
Tewfik's hand withdrew the scimitar a handspan, then rammed it home again. "If we lose this army, our people will perish," he said. "And we cannot maintain discipline, even, if we cannot feed the troops."
He looked around. "Ibrahim, put the camp on one-quarter rations—and the camp followers are to receive nothing. Confiscate all private supplies of food. Hussein, mount ten thousand men and be ready to ride within the hour."
"Glad to be out of the ruins," Staenbridge said, looking back at the walls of Gurnyca.
Raj nodded. The faint stink of the piles of heads still clung to the inside of his nose, an oily thing like overripe bananas. Almost as bad had been the rats and the scavenging sauroids, rabbit-sized scuttling things all spidery limbs and teeth. One had gone past him with a desiccated arm in its mouth, still wearing the lace-cuffed sleeve of a lady's day-dress.
"That sort of thing has to stop," he said quietly.
"I don't think the wogs will be invading us again in the near future," the other man said with a predatory smile.
Raj shook his head. "I mean it's got to stop. We did pretty much the same to the country around Ain el-Hilwa. Look at this!"
He gestured at the territory around them. A few weeks before it had been among the richest land in the Civil Government. Now the fields lay waste, empty except for the ragged scraps of sheep and cattle that the scavengers had left. Burnt stumps marked the remains of orchards, tall date palms and spreading citrus lying amid drifting ash. The adobe of the roofless peasant huts was already crumbling; the fired brick and stone of the burnt-out manors would last only a little longer. Weirs and sluice-gates and the windmills that watered the higher land were blackened wreckage as well. The long column of Civil Government troops rode through silence, amid a hot wind laden with sand. The sand would reclaim everything to the river's edge, in time.
"There are enough barbarians to fight, without wrecking civilization," Raj said. "That's why Ali has to be stopped. Barholm wants to unite the planet, even if it's only so he can rule it himself. Ali's a sicklefoot and he destroys for the love of it."
Staenbridge glanced around instinctively, with the gesture anyone in East Residence—or in the officer corps—learned to use when a too frank opinion of the Governor was voiced. Raj nodded silently. Staenbridge had a family to protect.
Raj's lips tightened. Suzette should be in no danger even if Barholm killed her husband; her family was old and well-connected. A child, though . . .
"Well, this will simplify our logistics," Bartin Foley said happily.
The wagons stood abandoned but not empty in the middle of the road, their trek-chains lying limp like dead snakes. From the sign, the teams had been driven on ahead with the dogs of the escort, but no attempt had been made to damage the cargoes.
"Which is fortunate," he murmured, taking off his helmet.
It was surprising; even now he had to remind himself not to scratch his head with his left . . . well, left hook. He juggled the bowl-shaped steel headpiece and ran a hand through sweat-damp black curls. His scalp felt cooler for an instant, then hot again as the noon sun struck it. He heeled his dog and rode slowly down the line of wagons. Half the loads were ammunition, loads for heavy siege guns. Very fortunate that the teamsters had been struck by blind panic. The other half was wheat biscuit and bundles of dried advocati.
"Ser."
A plume of dust was coming up the road from the south; the banner of the 5th and Messer Raj's personal flag at its head. He kneed his mount over to the side of the road, smiling to himself. Suzette wasn't along this time, and he suspected why. He knew the signs. Fatima had borne her first in Sandoral, during the winter Raj spent preparing to meet Jamal's invasion. The whole process was rather disturbing, like a good many things female, but the end product was delightful.
It was also pleasant not to be facing destruction at the hands of an army that outnumbered them seven to one.
The command group pulled up, the battalion fanning out into the fields on either side. "Drag it all down to the river?" Gerrin said.
Foley shook his head. "It's about half ammunition. If we push everything together and set a fuse . . ."
Troopers came in by squads and pulled out bales of advocati to bait their dogs, filling their own haversacks with Colonial hard tack and strips of dried mutton. It was a little past noon and intensely hot, the land and sky turned white in the blaze of the sun.
"Ser." A much smaller plume of dust this time, approaching from the north.
The officers corked their canteens and waited with a stolid patience that ignored the discomfort. Their dogs twitched ears and tails against the omnipresent Drangosh Valley flies. Antin M'lewis pulled up at the head of ten of his Scouts.
"Ser," he said, with a casual wave that approximated a salute. " 'Bout a thousand wogs comin', all cavalry, six guns. Five klicks off an' closin' fast."
Raj nodded, wiping sweat and dust from his face with his neckerchief. "We'll give them a reception," he said. To a messenger: "My compliments to Majors Bellamy and Gruder, and would they close up quickly, please." He looked around at the terrain. "This should do; Gerrin, set up along this crestline."
"Guns to the left?" Staenbridge asked, pointing to the snags of a citrus orchard that ran down the gentle slope east of the road.
"By all means."
"I presume we don't intend to stay here long."
"No," Raj said. "The last thing we want is a general engagement; we'll just show them they have to stay bunched up and slow them down."
He turned to Foley. "Barton, how many wagon trains does this make?"
"Altogether? Including the ones wrecked when we were coming downstream?" At Raj's nod he continued: "Twenty-seven; four hundred twenty-two wagons of all sizes. Mostly these standard models," he concluded, waving a hand at the ones in the road.
"That means they shouldn't have recovered more than twenty or thirty tons of supplies altogether," he said. Softly: "Most excellent."
The messengers went out; on either side the 5th's troopers fanned out, sending their dogs back and unlimbering their entrenching tools for hasty heaped-earth sangars to their front. A few minutes later Ludwig Bellamy and Kaltin Gruder trotted up the roadway with their banners fluttering in the hot wind, the dust clouds of their commands behind them.
"Mi heneral," Bellamy said, his beard-stubble golden against the brown tan of his face. "Dispatches from Colonel Menyez."
Raj took them and broke the seal; the wax was as soft as butter. "Ah. The Colonials are breaking camp outside Sandoral. I think friend Ali has just realized how badly his testicles are caught in the mangler."
The commanders grinned like a group of carnosauroids contemplating a dying sheep.
"This is their vanguard, then," Raj said, looking north. "All right. We'll punch them back, then move southward—they'll be substantially slower, but I don't want to take any chances with Tewfik. Messenger: to Colonel Menyez. I want enough barges to take us off held in constant readiness. We can always duck back across the river if they lunge."
"We'll have to keep a very close eye on them," Staenbridge said thoughtfully.
Raj tapped his chin with one thumb. "Constant patrols," he agreed. "I don't think they'll want to wear down their dogs with skirmishing, hungry as they are."
The carnivore grins widened. Gruder began to laugh; after a moment, the others joined in.
Center drew a graph across Raj's vision, of consumption balanced against maximum possible reserves. At the back of his consciousness there was a trace of feeling, a satisfaction colder and more complete than a human mind could feel.
"Hold your fire!" Raj snapped.
He blinked into the setting sun; four days in the saddle had left his eyes red-rimmed and sore, the Drangosh Valley was hell for dust. He wiped his sleeve across his face and brought up his binoculars. Around him on the hillock the platoon of the 5th lowered their rifles, and the crew of the splatgun looked up from their weapon. Horace stood under the shade of the carob tree and panted, washcloth-sized tongue hanging down, and drooping ears almost covering his eyes.
"Easy target, ser," the gunner said, hopefully.
Raj raised his binoculars. The main Colonial army was several kilometers away; this encampment was notably more ragged than the last. Hardly an encampment at all, with no baggage train; the animals had all been eaten, to judge from the cracked bones left in their campfires. Most of their cavalry were walking and leading their dogs behind them. Some were carrying the saddles as well.
It was the patrol riding towards his men on the hilltop that interested him now. There were two banners at its head, hanging limp in the hot still air. He waited patiently; a gust of breeze flapped them out. One was pure white; the other, black with a Seal of Solomon in red.
"Tewfik," Raj whispered. The sweat down his spine turned clammy.
"Ensign," he said. "We're staying for a moment; they're coming under a truce flag. Get something white and wave it on a stick. Water the dogs, but keep a careful look-out. And have someone set out a blanket, with a piece of hard-tack and some salt."
They were out of extreme field gun range of the Colonial camp, but you never knew.
"Sir," the Ensign said, relaying the orders.
A detail trotted downslope to the well in the courtyard of a burned-out steading. A trooper unstrapped the rolled blanket from behind his saddle, spread it on the scraggly twistgrass beneath the carob tree, and set out a canteen, two cups and a piece of Colonial flat biscuit with a small twist of gray salt on it.
The men were looking at Raj curiously. "What does it mean, sir?" the young officer asked.
"I think," Raj said slowly, "it means the war is over. Escort our guest to me."
Raj saw Tewfik's eye widen in surprise as he recognized the Civil Government commander. The Colonial was much as Raj remembered him from the parley just before the first battle of Sandoral five years ago, perhaps a little grayer. Looking a little gaunt from five days on quarter-rations, but still stocky and strong. Like a scarred bull in a pasture, confronting a younger rival and twitching his horns. Raj knew that Tewfik would be seeing far greater changes in him.
"Salaam aleikoum," the Arab said, bowing slightly.
"Aleikoum es-salaam," Raj replied in accentless Arabic. Center had given him that, and practice made it come smoothly. "And upon you, peace, Tewfik ibn'Jamal."
"Shall it be peace, then?"
"If the Spirit wills. Come, let us talk."
Raj gestured, and the troopers retreated down the slope, out of immediate earshot and with their backs to the supreme commanders. The two men walked into the shade of the carob. Tewfik's eye caught the bread and salt; also the fact that they hadn't yet been offered to him. There was wary respect on his face as he turned to face his enemy and let the saddlebags he carried over one shoulder drop to the ground.
Carefully, carefully, Raj told himself. Take no chances with this man.
indeed, Center said. A brief vision flashed before Raj's eyes: the same meeting, but with the relative positions reversed. if my physical centrum had been located in al kebir, rather than east residence . . .
I'd be the one trying to salvage something from the wreck, Raj acknowledged.
"I will not waste words," Tewfik said abruptly, into the growing silence. "You have won this campaign. Without even fighting a major battle. My compliments, young kaphar; it is a feat for the manuals and the historians to chew over."
"More than the campaign," Raj said quietly. "The war. And I would betray my ruler and my State, if I did not use this advantage to ensure the Colony is no longer a threat to the Civil Government. We have fought you every generation for nearly a thousand years; it's irrelevant who was at fault in any given war. It must cease."
Tewfik nodded, his face still cat-calm. "Yet it is said that Heneralissimo Whitehall fights also for the cause of civilization on Bellevue," he said. "We of the House of Islam brought man to this world. We built its first cities. We preserved much of what learning survived the Fall, and we are the other half of civilized life on this world. Would you see our cities burn and the books with them, while the howling peoples camp in the ruins?"
Raj inclined his head. "You admit that the Colony is ruined if your army is destroyed?"
"That is as God wills; but too many of our high nobles are with us, our best commanders and the leadership needed to maintain the unity of our state. And our best troops; we left nothing but garrison forces on the frontiers. If they do not return, there will be civil war—fourscore separate civil wars; instead of one Settler, we will have a hundred malik al'taifas, petty kings ruling factions. They will not be able to maintain the irrigation canals, nor guard the frontiers against the Skinners and the Zanj."
"Or us," Raj pointed out.
Tewfik shook his head. "Conquering a hundred splinter realms would be impossible. You would have to garrison them heavily and there would be constant revolt; our people will not tolerate direct rule by unbelievers, not without such punishment as would destroy what you tried to govern."
"What do you propose?"
The Arab nobleman took a deep breath. "I cannot rule," he said, touching his eye. "And Ali . . . he is my brother, but he is a disaster for all Muslims. One way or another, sooner or later, he would have ruined the Colony. Already he has killed many of our best men—and anyone else who was there at the wrong time.
"What I propose is this: half our army to be disarmed and sent to East Residence. I suggest that you use them to garrison the Southern and Western Territories; there they will be hostages against the Colony's good behavior. I will take the other half back with me to Al Kebir, and there rule as Vice-Governor in Barholm Clerett's name. My daughter Chaba will go to East Residence and wed Governor Barholm."
He shrugged, and for the first time smiled slightly. "I have no sons, and I fear I have been too indulgent with her—even allowing her to be taught to read. Perhaps it will be better for her thus."
Well, Raj thought, slightly dazed. That's emphatic enough. Center's sensor-grid came down over Tewfik's face, tracing blood flow, temperature, pupil-dilation.
subject tewfik is sincere, the computer-angel said. probability 82%±7.
Raj was slightly startled. Usually the percentage was much higher, one way or another.
subject tewfik has an unusual degree of control over autonomic body functions. in your vernacular, a poker face.
"A moment," Raj said.
He turned and looked out over the dusty plain of the Drangosh. Then he turned back.
"That sounds acceptable, in outline," he said. "We'll have to settle a few details. Release of all Civil Government prisoners in the Colony, for instance; and an annual tribute sufficient to pay the twenty-five thousand men you'll be giving us. Customs, tariffs, that sort of thing the bureaucrats can settle."
Tewfik nodded, hesitated, then stroked his beard. "My offer, of course, would apply to any other Governor as well," he hinted. "From all reports, Governor Barholm is somewhat preferable to my brother Ali . . . but that is not a strong recommendation."
Meaning, take the Chair yourself and rule the world, Raj thought.
interpretation of subtext correct, probability 98%±1, Center clarified.
"How do I know this isn't a ploy to save Ali and half your army?" Raj said. "You could be planning to write the other half off. It'd still be a larger force than I have in the field, and campaigning down to the Drangosh delta would be a nightmare, particularly with this area too devastated to use as a base."
Tewfik smiled grimly and opened the saddlebag he'd brought. His curly-toed boot hooked it over to lie at Raj's feet. A head rolled out; fairly fresh, although the flies were already crawling around the hacked stump of the neck and the staring eyes. Raj did not need the ruby-clasped turban that rolled from the shaven skull to identify it.
"That for Ali," Tewfik said, and kicked the head to one side. "I should have done that years ago."
Raj raised his brows slightly. I shouldn't be surprised if he's . . . decisive, he decided. He gestured to the blanket. They sat down across from each other cross-legged, and shared the bread and salt. Raj laid the sword between them and Tewfik touched his hand to the hilt and blade.
"There shall be peace," Raj said. "I accept . . . in Governor Barholm's name."
"Wa sha' a-l-lah," Tewfik said, the formula full of a tired sincerity. He shrugged and spat on the head. "May God will it."