Posleen War: Sidestories The Tuloriad (25 page)

Once again Querida darted back, then began circling to her right. The boy tried to follow but the shorter, lighter and quicker boma blade kept knocking his dulled point away, leaving him uncovered to his mother's attacks.

“It doesn't seem to be much of a weapon,” Guano's new AS translated to von Altishofen as the human walked up.

The Wachtmeister shook his head. “It's better than a pike for an individual, but not as good as a sword, no. But it's not actually meant to be used individually . . . except maybe on a helpless target . . . an unhorsed knight laying on the ground, for example.”

“Can you show me?” Guano asked through the new AS. “I'd have you show the mother but she may not understand and might overreact.”

“Surely.”

Guano grunted and then gave a whistle, calling Querida and Frederico over to him. He motioned for them to sit and be calm, then put down his carving and took the other edgeless practice boma blade from the package by his feet.

Querida was furious, twitching all over with anger. She couldn't say the words, but she also couldn't help thinking, Not fair. Notnotnot fair. More than one to one? Dishonorableunfairwrong.

Still, her lord had given the command and she must obey. No matter that she wanted to replace the practice boma blade with a real one and lunge in . . .

Now this looks difficult, Guano thought at the Switzers, in two ranks, advanced upon him. Instinctively he backed up, keeping his blade forward. The Swiss moved a little faster forward than he could backwards. One of the strange human weapons they called 'halberds' suddenly thrust forward, at his chest. He blocked that easily enough but as he did another went low and hooked around his left foreleg. He couldn't go back now, not until he freed that leg. Another dull practice point came towards his chest. Again he batted it aside but as he did the halberdier twisted it and pulled back, temporarily locking Guano's blade. By the time he could free the blade still another halberd jabbed at the right side of his trunk, well behind his chest. Guano danced to the left but another tug on the hook around his foreleg sent him toppling.

Again Querida howled with anger, going so far as to stand up.

“Dad said, 'calm,' Mom,” Frederico cautioned.

Guano toppled over and rolled. As he did he slashed the dull blade parallel to the deck and a few inches above it. Two of the Switzers jumped high to avoid the slash, while one, not so quick as his mates, yelped and fell down.

No matter. By the time Guano had begun to retract his blade for another swing a dozen dulled pike points were pressing on his neck and trunk.

“'Use them in mass,' I believe you said, Herr Wachtmeister,” Guano conceded.

Laying there on the ground, a dozen spearpoints pointed at him, even then the Christian kessentai's laughter came through his AS. He added, as the Switzers helped him back to his feet, “You know, I believe that's almost the most fun I've had in decades.”

Painful it was to retreat under attack

Nor could any kessentai less strong than our lord

Have forced himself to it

Anymore than Brasingala the Brave could leave his lord . . .

—The Tuloriad, Na'agastenalooren

Anno Domini 2010—Anno Domini 2011

Hemaleen Five

“My, isn't this fun,” Tulo muttered as the wave of maniac locals receded from the front line around the redoubt.

The line behind his had thinned out almost completely as those who had expended their immediately available ammunition turned and filed into the C-Dec. This had its good side—The more of my people I can save, the better—but it also meant the forward line was bulged inward in places. Some of that inward bulge came from enemy pressure. The rest was marked by the butchered bodies of kessentai and cosslain, fallen where they had stood.

The great lord's chest heaved. There, near the end of that last rush it had come down to hand to hand. His boma blade dripped with the yellow blood of the locals.

Tulo looked around. Yes, the last line but for this one and those on the inner rampart is almost boarded. He then turned his attention to the mass of the locals, milling about between the walls. No one was currently engaging these, as if by common understanding that if shot at they might charge again. More of the locals were still pouring over the far wall in a flood, then coming to a confused, shuddering halt as they ran into the remnants of those who had preceded them.

If these addled-egg shit-eaters will give me half a chance, I'll get the rest aboard before the next rush. But . . . ah . . . shit.

Finba'anaga was frightened near witless. He'd never been a particularly courageous kessentai, and had—deep down—known it, whatever his dreams might have been. Now, with the massed grunts and screams of the pressing aboriginals, the massed crack of rail gun fire, the few wounded being carried through and the air of near panic as line after defensive line of the People tried to squeeze through the C-Dec's all too narrow portals . . .

Please, Finba thought . . . please . . . something . . . anything . . . SAVE me.

Ordinarily, Brasingala was not the sort to disobey orders. Rather, he was definitely of the “Render unto Caesar” type. But when Tulo'stenaloor had ordered him away he'd balked, even as he turned over command of the little tenar squadron to an underling, with instructions to move out and rendezvous as Tulo'stenaloor had decreed.

Thus, at the maximum distance his AS could make out and enhance the image of Tulo'stenaloor, and as near above the likely direction of travel of wayward flechettes as he could safely bring his tenar, Brasingala waited.

Even at that, he occasionally heard the crack of a passing flechette, sometimes coming even from above where he rode.

Only to be expected, he thought. Even were they all well aimed—and they never are—some of them will bounce off of others and go in any direction.

The hearts inside Brasingala had nearly burst with pride, time and again, as he watched his lord coolly beat back one attack after another. Almost he dared to hope that they might come through safe, as he saw one line after another of the people file through the gaps in the inner rampart and onto the ship.

But then came the time when he saw that there was but a single file remaining outside the rampart, his lord in line with the rest. Too, he saw the refreshed and reinforced enemy make yet another push. By the time the last magazine to the last rail gun was emptied, Brasingala heard Tulo'stenaloor give the order to Goloswin, “Board your people and lift, Tinkerer. And don't forget to pick up the tenar.” Before the last sentence was finished Brasingala was already speeding at a rate no tenar was meant to go indefinitely to stand at the end by his lord's side.

Tulo, with a cosslain on one side and a kessentai on the other, slashed down at a charging normal, slicing the creature's head in two. Yellow blood burst up to smear across his scaly face. The God-king laughed, a half-insane cackle of delight in battle, or “edan” in Low Posleen.

Not so bad to go this way, Tulo thought. Better than being ground to nestling-in-an-intestinal-casing under the humans' artillery. Better than being hulled and frozen forever in space. Better than . . .

Tulo heard the cry, from just above and behind him, “Save the clan lord!”

The other kessentai nearby picked it up. “Save the clan lord.” Even the cosslain, without speech but still able to make sound, waved their boma blades high and trilled in time with the call. “Save the clan lord.”

Tulo stepped back, behind the cover of his two companions, the one shouting “Save the clan lord” and the other snarling defiance at the pressing subnormals. Brasingala appeared at his side, his tenar brought down to ground level.

“Take this, lord, and find safety,” Brasingala said. “Better I die here than live with the shame of abandoning my chieftain.”

“SAVE THE CLAN LORD!”

Over Tulo's AS came the sound of the Tinkerer's voice. “Take the tenar, Tulo. We will not lift without you.”

“I ordered you . . . I ordered you both—”

“SAVE THE CLAN LORD!”

“There comes a time, lord,” Brasingala said, “when even a bodyguard may disobey, when even a bodyguard must disobey. Take the tenar, lord. Guard and guide the people for many years. And remember, if you will, that I did my duty to the last.”

“SAVE THE CLAN LORD!”

There was no danger of ricocheting flechette now. Atop Brasingala's tenar Tulo stood, his right arm and hand outstretched in a salute as the last of the little knots of fighting Posleen, Brasingala among them, went down under the tide of normals.

“I shall miss you, boy,” Tulo said aloud. That was the most he could say aloud, though inside he wailed, Brasingala, my son.

There came a beeping warning from the C-Dec. Tulo knew it meant lift off in one hundred beats. Though he couldn't see them because the inner redoubt and outer wall blocked the angle of view, still Tulo could imagine them in their thousands milling about the base of the C-Dec and the five landers, futily trying to scratch their way in with their primitive flint knives.

“I wish I could see you bastards roast,” he said. “Instead, I'll just stay a moment, watch the flames rise, and listen to you scream.”

Tulo looked down at his left claw, the one not needed to guide the tenar. In it dripped a small gobbit of Brasingala's flesh that the guard had sliced off with his own boma blade.

“I had hoped that I would be part of the feast when I finally fell in your service, lord.” So had the bodyguard said as he handed over the still warm flesh. “This will have to do. Remember me.”

“I'll not forget you, son,” said Tulo, sadly, as he gulped down the offering.

Ship Arganaza'al

The hateful planet lay below. After the battle, the scrawny normals had stuck around for some few rotations, gorging themselves on the flesh of the fallen. In time, though, they separated out into their various herds to continue their endless migration around the globe.

After those herds had dispersed, Tulo sent down small groups, never more than a single lander could escape with, to continue with mining and manufacturing. While the herds always came back within a few or a few dozen rotations, he was able to evacuate his people before the herds came too close. Never again did they have to fight a battle for survival down below.

Little by little, too, the ammunition stocks expended were replenished from the fruits of the mines and the forge. One by one, as well, replacement landers for those lost in the semi-collision with the asteroid were finished and lofted to join the C-Dec.

For the several hundred kessentai and the more than a thousand cosslain lost there could be no immediate replacement.

“A boma blade has been thrust into the belly of our People,” Tulo had announced, speaking from the bridge through the ship's intercom system. “There cannot be wailing and tears enough to mourn for our loss.”

To that Goloswin and the remainder of Tulo's close followers had no answer. They too missed Brasingala. Nor was that kessentai the only loss among them. Gorasinth'zula and Essone were also among the missing, and none could say precisely how and where they had fallen.

Tulo could replace the fallen field commander, Gorasinth'zula, from among those new members of his clan that had proven themselves down below. Where he was to come up with a new adjutant, however, he did not know.

“It isn't all loss, you know, Tulo,” Goloswin insisted. “True, we lost some of our best, some of our old, long time best. But, on the other hand, those who are with us now are with us, tested in battle and forged in fire. I think we were not a true clan before. We are now.”

“Waxing poetic in your old age, Tinkerer?” Tulo chided.

“Perhaps that's it,” Golo conceded, with an uncharacteristically shy smile. “Where now, Tulo?”

“I do not know. If that little unconsumed snack Aelool had—”

The view screen came on, seemingly of its own accord. The image of the Indowy spoke from it.

“Enough time has passed to reactivate this program,” Aelool's image said. “By now, People of the Ships, you will have found the mystery down below. What that mystery is, none of us could say. Only could we say that the legends suggest it was the site of an important episode in your history. The fact that the nature of that importance was hidden from us told us that it was a very important episode in that history.”

“You will stay here above this planet briefly before we continue on to the rest of our journey.”

“One other thing,” Tulo said. “Before we depart I want a warning beacon put up, telling one and all what we have found here, and warning them of the full dangers.”

“It shall be done,” Essthree answered. And if outing the truth pisses off the Aldenata, so much the better.

“Let's see if that doesn't piss off the Aldenata, that we make public what they've done,” Tulo said, which words got him a very odd stare from the Essthree.

“And let us declare a day and a feast of gratitude,” Tulo finished, “that our People have been yet again delivered from the 'mercies' of the Aldenata.”

The cosslain—but for the servers, one per kessentai—were not excluded from the feast. They simply weren't invited. In any event, few of them would have understood or much cared had they understood. They would be fed extra rations even so.

Of the relatively few normals carried and awakened from hibernation, seventeen were invited to the feast. Indeed, they were guests of honor, after a fashion. Each was led in by a cosslain server. Another cosslain followed close behind.

The seventeen normals were garlanded in wreaths made of mixed leaves of heavy metal and baser stuff. Over the back of each was laid a sort of blanket, embroidered with various symbols and writing that neither the normals nor the cosslain embroiderers really understood.

The symbols varied. One might have an odd, five-candled menorah. Yet another wore crossed boma blades. Two showed burning towers. Upon the very last was a symbolic battle globe.

The words were taken from the sacred scrolls of the Rememberers. “As theirs was the praise; let theirs be the blame . . . Eat that ye might live . . . All of life is a struggle . . . They claimed to know and yet they knew not . . .”