The Far Side (36 page)

“The rock is a dirty trick,” Andie mused.  “We’ll throw it like a girl would, not very hard and underhanded.  It’ll bounce off and they’ll be laughing.”

“Odds are,” Ezra agreed with her.  “Andie, Kris -- this is our lives versus theirs.  This isn’t talking about how you’re going to fuck over Kit and Art when we get back.  If we miss killing one right off, real quick, some or all of us could get hurt.”

“And we’re girlie girls,” Andie said with bitterness.  “They won’t be expecting anything from us, will they?”

“Probably not.”

“Still, even if we shoot them quickly, they might shoot one of us.”

“Not you two, because they won’t see you as a threat.  If I’ve had a chance to do a little shooting, they’ll all be lined up on me if they’re smart.”  He laughed nastily.

“What?” Kris asked.

“Well, there is armor and there is body armor.  Kurt was sure I’d need the heavy stuff eventually, so I started off with a light vest.  It’ll stop most pistol bullets -- musket balls don’t come that hard.  So shoot the fuckers, even if it’s not me they’re aiming at.

“There’s a dirty secret they never tell you about the old-style battles between armies.  Maybe one of ten wounds is incapacitating and maybe one in a hundred with proper battlefield medicine are lethal.  I’ve spent a lot of time going over field first aid with you.”

That evening, the soldier Rari told them of what he’d learned from Chaba during the day.  It was a hard thing, Kris found.  Chaba spoke a language that Rari spoke poorly.  Ezra spoke Rari’s language even less well than Rari spoke to Chaba.  It was like the old game of a whispered message, passed around a room, arriving not at all like it had started out.

Andie was taking notes, and Kris paid part attention to what Andie was writing, as well as listening to the translation.

“She is Chaba, formerly a slave to one Harta Nomer,” Rari explained.  “He was a war leader among the tribes of the Tengri and commanded the soldiers aboard their ship.  Lurlu Unna was the man who commanded the sailors.  They had been sent west to explore, looking for us, when they were swept up in a great storm.

“Lurlu was killed in the storm, and his assistant took command and saved the ship from sinking many times.  Chaba thinks his name was Homer Simpson or something like it.”

Kris made a rude sound as she read Andie’s rendition of the name.  Andie stuck her tongue out, and the two laughed, mystifying everyone, Kris thought, except maybe Ezra.

“We found ourselves on a distant shore after many days of terror and hunger.  We had little food and no water.  Some went crazy with fear and thirst.

“When we arrived, the beaches looked nice, but the waves made trying to land impossible.  Only one of the three boats they launched from the ships, six men in each, reached shore; ten good men died, and one was badly injured.  The one uninjured man was Harta, a braver man than most.

“Harta found some fresh water and he and his men filled as many kegs as they could -- too many, as they could barely row the boat, and the waves beat it back against the shore.  Harta, dove into the surf and returned safely to the ship, the others were stuck on the shore.  Two others tried it and died.  The others ran away.

“The ship followed the shore south a few miles, and the shore turned west, then north again after a few miles.  There, the beaches were much safer and they used the remaining two boats to ferry people ashore, while the ship’s crew worked frantically to make repairs.

“There was little food, and one evening Chaba overheard Harta speaking to Homer saying that Harta was going to tell Chaba to go without dinner for some imagined error, then he would rape her a few times, and in the morning have her put to death, so there would be one less mouth to feed.”

Kris’ stomach heaved.  Why had she only shot the bastard once?  Ezra was right!  Fill the fuckers with lead!

“She couldn’t stop the miserable man from having his way with her, and she used her feminine wiles to stir him to great depths of passion.  As soon as he was asleep, she snuck away in the night, and as soon as it was light, she ran off into the mountains, thinking to lose herself in the cliffs and ridges.  Then she heard you talking to me and fell into the ravine and you killed the sorry fuck of a master of hers.  She says she owes you an eternal debt of gratitude.”

Chaba was looking at Kris with what had to be hero worship, making Kris uncomfortable.  Rari said something and for a while there was palaver between Chaba, Rari, Melek and Ezra.

“Rari says that you broke Chaba’s chains, and that, woman or not, you should be an honorary Chain Breaker.  Ezra says it’s probably not a good idea.  Melek is agreeing with him I think, but the old guy, Collum, is sitting there like a stone, without any expression.  Kris, unless I am imagining it, the old coot has got a lot of mojo,” Andie told Kris.

Ezra laughed.  “We talked earlier about how far and how fast he was going.  You noticed and the soldiers noticed.”

One of the men said something that sounded disparaging.

Collum spat a few dozen words, none of which Kris recognized.

Ezra, though, sucked wind.  “Collum says he is the Sachem of the Chain Breakers, and that he would make a drooling infant a Chain Breaker if the infant could break chains.”

The same man shrugged off someone’s cautioning hand, and he spat just one word that didn’t sound friendly at all.  There were gasps, but Collum just reached into his pack, pulled the crossbow out, twisted the fork to cock the crossbow, and then dropped a quarrel in, lifted it, and aimed at the speaker’s chest, barely three feet away.

It was done smoothly and efficiently, and only after a second did Kris realized the man had to have been practicing.  Then she noticed that the quarrel was “Andie’s Mark Two Quarrel.”  This was thinner, and there were four fins at the rear, like fletching on an arrow.  At that range it would go in the man’s chest and out his back.

The man with the crossbow aimed at him lifted his chin, but didn’t say anything.

Collum started speaking.  This time, he motioned for Melek to translate to Ezra, Andie and Kris.  “He says he is the Sachem of the Chain Breakers,” Ezra said.

“I’m using Sachem, which is a Native American word for war leader because the word they use sounds like ‘sock-em.’  Close enough for government work.

“He says he is a Chain Breaker, as were all his ancestors back to the man who left his wife and two daughters behind, lost in the mad flight to escape.  His ancestor knew that his family would become slaves, and he and all of the others vowed to return to free them, and kill the Tengri who had taken them.

“Except, this place was further than anyone imagined and there were perils here that had to be overcome, if any of them were to survive.  His family fought to make sure that no one forgot those left behind -- right up until even his family was more concerned with everyday issues here.  It has been, he says, a very long time.

“Now they’ve been reminded and now, more than ever, the Chain Breakers need the support of the other groups or guilds or societies.  I’m really not sure of the word -- a lot of their words incorporate a great many things in one relatively small word.

“Anyway, all Sachems know the value of examples and heroes and he named some from other groups.  He repeats that he can make anyone a Chain Breaker and if any of the others can make a weapon like Andie has, break a chain like Kris has and kill a dralka with one shot to the chest -- why, he’ll make them a Chain Breaker too.  No one else need apply.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Andie whispered.

“It’s called motivation,” Ezra whispered back.  “It’s what Travis did at the Alamo -- not only did he shame everyone into staying, he made them all publicly commit to it.  That famous line in the sand.”

After that, the camp grew quiet, and the small fire that had been built died away to nothing quickly.  The weather was mild, if a little humid in the mornings, but not too bad.  Once the campfire died down, men started falling asleep, one after another.

When the only one left awake was Melek, sporadically dozing and jerking awake near where the fire had been, Ezra told the two girls to follow him.  They went a hundred yards and bedded down in a different jumble of boulders.  “Just in case,” Ezra told them.  “You just never know.  If you hear anything strange, wake me with a foot in the ribs.  Don’t make any noise!”

Kris looked up at the sky, obscured by a huge dark black hole out there that was a lot like their own planet.  As the sun had been coming up the morning before, the planet had a tinge of blue and white on the edge facing the sun.

She was still thinking about the dark hole and the “City of Light” she’d seen the other day when she fell asleep.

* * *

When Melek woke, there was a solid tinge of light in the sky to the east, with the last crescent of the Big Moon fading into the morning sky.

He started to get up to stretch when he saw the dark face of a man not far away, his weapon held high, the end running in circles over Melek and his men, as if trying to decide who to shoot first.

There was a very faint sound, and Melek saw Collum had made the noise.  Collum was lying on his back, a blanket over him.  For a second, Melek had no idea why anyone would have needed a blanket on such a mild night, but then he realized the truth of it.  Collum had the crossbow under the blanket, and unlike a bow, he could fire it very quickly but simply kicking the blanket away.

Melek looked around and didn’t see Ezra and his two young women.

There were four of the dark-skinned men, standing in a small wedge, looking over Melek and his men with a look of contempt on their faces.  The one raised his thunder rod again and aimed it at Melek and said something that Melek didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand,” Melek said in his own tongue.

Chaba spoke softly to Rari, and Rari spoke louder.  “They say to stand with our hands empty, or die on the ground.”

Chaba lifted her voice a bit, speaking placatingly.  As soon as the one dark man in the lead heard her voice, he turned, pointing his thunder rod at Chaba.  He was intent, Melek was sure, on shooting Chaba.

There was a blur next to him as Collum threw off the blanket, and the quarrel took the leader in the chest.  It had so much power that the quarrel came out the man’s back and nearly hit the man behind the leader, causing him to flinch.

From off to one side there were a series of sounds that were louder and longer than before from Ezra’s weapon.  The three remaining soldiers of their ancient enemies died before Melek could finish one breath.  What had he once wondered?  Whether or not Ezra could kill all of his men as fast as he could snap his fingers?  No man could snap fingers as fast as Ezra could kill!

Men boiled up from the ground, taking cover and stringing their bows and getting arrows nocked.

Collum looked at Melek and shook his head.  “I was congratulating myself on how fast I killed the man, and was prepared to roll and come up with my own bow and start shooting.  I didn’t even have time to put down Andie’s bow -- and it was over.”

“Do you think this was all of them?” Melek asked Collum.

Collum laughed.  “If there were more of them they would either just be starting a panic-stricken run or they would be shouting imprecations at us.  Since I don’t see anyone fleeing, and can’t hear anyone yelling at us, this was all of them.”

“You understand, Melek that I have to command now?”

“Of course, Sachem!  I never thought otherwise!”

“Good.”  Collum raised his voice.  “Corporal Kissom, draw your bow and stand up!”

Kissom had been the nay-sayer the night before.  There was no immediate reaction, and Collum stood up, drawing the bow that Andie had made, and doing the thing that drew the wire back.  When he was done, Collum looked over at where Kissom was still on the ground.  “Odd, isn’t it, how I stand, and you lie, eh?”

He pointed to another of the soldiers.  “Private Cellon, if you would.  Go to the man I shot, remove his thunder rod and bring it to me.  Return to him and find the iron arrow I used to kill him and return that to me.  Then get the thunder rods from the three that Ezra killed and bring them to me, as well.”

Kissom spat on the ground.  “They should go to Ezra, as is our custom!”

Collum laughed at him.  “If you had his weapon, would you trade it for one of ours?”

Everyone else laughed at that, except Collum and Kissom.  Cellon, however, might have been laughing, but he wasn’t going to argue with someone who appeared very much like a Sachem.

It wasn’t until the weapons were at Collum’s feet that Ezra and his two charges appeared.  Ezra had his weapon in his hands while the other two simply looked alert, their eyes going every which way.

Melek had to admire the way Ezra did it.  Really, if you were totally ignorant, would you assume the two small devices that the girls carried were like the larger one Ezra carried?  Of course not!  But Melek had seen the damage done to the dralka by Ezra’s weapon, and he’d seen the damage done to the Tengri officer after Kris had killed him.  The weapons themselves might not look that much alike, but the effects were the same.

He stopped thinking as Collum lifted the crossbow and fired.  Ezra turned and looked and fired his weapon as well.  A dralka, about twenty feet off the ground and about a hundred feet away, tumbled wildly and slammed into the rocks well short of the camp.  The second, further back, veered and was gaining altitude, trying to escape.  Ezra took some time, fired once, and the second dralka folded and crashed.