Ikke fegling som d’ alren, dolte aj i prysi jomme, kjampe han, jaav liks a vasam, hovding han blann orkahodern.
Hatte rival, luden Dreka, han som glade sej i tortyr, sjalson t’ d’ aset Kassi.
[Ahmed was he, son of Ahmed, was the seed of Kazi’s spy-dog in the Magyar court of Janos.
Black-skinned was he like his father, patient also like the elder, ruthless, cunning, as his sire was.
Was no telepath however, read not minds as had his father, though he strove to rule the psi men.
Was no coward like his father skulking in a velvet covert, was a warrior hard and wary, was a chieftain in the orc horde.
Had a rival, hairy Draco, he whose pleasures lie in tortures,
Draco, soul-child of dead Kazi.]
From THE JARNHANN SAGA,
Kumalo translation.
The buckled lattice of leather straps reached high on the ankles, as on Roman sandals. The leather soles were needlessly thick and hard, however, and noisy with metal bosses and heel plates. They clattered harshly in the stone corridor, driven by five pairs of strong purposeful bare legs, and turned a blind corner without caution. Two slaves, warned by the unsynchronized tattoo, already stood clear with their backs to the wall. It was basic to remain unnoticed, and their minds were carefully blank as the officers passed, erect, hard, and arrogant.
The man who strode at the front of the group was clearly in command. One of the others, despite the pace and hard decisiveness of their march, tried to speak confidentially into the leader’s ear but was cut off with a brusque gesture. The chamber they entered had no door to be opened. The corridor simply ended in it, with glass doors opposite standing open on a sun-lit balcony. Unlike the corridor, the chamber was not walled with dark polished basalt, but veneered with marble, hung with rich indigo fabric, and carpeted with furs.
Five men awaited the five, and they too had an obvious leader. All ten dressed much the same: boots, short-sleeved tunic, and light harness with an ornamental breast plate, silver for the leaders, polished bronze for the others. Their visible weapons were short swords, ceremonial but also lethal.
The waiting leader, Draco, was Mediterranean in appearance, ugly-handsome, with olive skin, thick close-cropped curly hair, and a mat resembling black fur curling on his forearms and bare legs. He looked like a compact gladiator, mean and muscular, brutal and deadly.
The leader of the second five, Ahmed, was taller and more slender-fine-boned, actually-giving somehow the simultaneous impressions of smoothness and lean muscularity. His coloring was coffee brown, his hair a skullcap of fine kinks. He was cool, contained, and calculating, and the impression of deadliness he gave was different than Draco’s-if there was gloating to be done it would follow, not anticipate the act.
“Your men are the garrison force,” Ahmed opened coldly. “You clean them out. If you can.”
Draco smirked. “The region north and west of the Danube is your responsibility. The Master himself assigned the sectors.” He stared amusedly at Ahmed, the tilt of his head suggesting that he, the telepath, was listening to more than the Sudanese wanted to tell him.
Ahmed knew better. To him, screening was no effort; it was just there. Words came to his dark lips and action to the slender-strong fingers with seeming spontaneity. Only that effortless screening enabled him to compete successfully with ruthless telepaths for leadership.
“Have you forgotten his final instructions to you?” Ahmed replied. “Let me quote them. ‘Draco, I know you have the taste and wits for the job, and I am leaving you plenty of men. I also know you’re lazy, careless, and inclined to overkill when left alone. Do not forget, while I am gone, that I will return. When I do, everything must be in order. I hold you responsible for any revolts, or incursions by wandering tribes. Also keep in mind that dead slaves are of no further use except to the commissary department, and beef is much cheaper.’ ”
It was a remarkably close quote, delivered with the same contemptuous condescension as the original. Only the emphases were Ahmed’s. And the quotation carried a background, a context not apparent in the words themselves. Both of Kazi’s lieutenants, bitter antagonists, had wanted field command in the Russian campaign, and Ahmed had been chosen.
Draco’s face darkened with anger. “But he did not come back. His field commander led the army to defeat and allowed the Master to be killed. Now the situation is different. I am my own master and make my own decisions. I have no more responsibility north of the Danube.”
Ahmed smiled slightly. “This city is north of the Danube. Do I command it alone then?”
Draco’s eyes bulged with sudden anger, his left hand clutching reflexively at his hilt. “We are south of it!” he snarled. “Are you completely ignorant? The City is north of the canal but south of the Danube!”
“A quibble. The Master treated the canal as the eastward extension of the river.” Ahmed’s tone became more reasonable now, almost conciliatory. “Besides, my defeat you remind me of left only a ragged few hundred of their warriors alive. Not every Northman is a warrior; not even most of them. The great majority are peasants. Consider then that my army did its part when we butchered so many of them in the Ukraine. We have paid our share of the cost. And you do not want it said that Draco preferred to leave the fighting to others.”
Draco did consider, screening from the psis on Ahmed’s staff. Perhaps this was an opportunity. Ahmed had failed in the Ukraine, but he had not been an experienced field commander; his position had come from his father’s influence with Kazi. While he, Draco, had risen through the ranks.
His patrols had several times encountered Northman patrols and raiding parties with results ranging from exasperating to shocking. But those had been chance engagements, not part of a systematic campaign. And the Northmen were no longer a free-roving war party, vulnerable only in their persons. Their whole nation was with them now, peasants, women and children, making them a much easier nut to crack. If he destroyed them he would be recognized as the new Master.
“I’ll think about it,” he answered stiffly. Ahmed would not have set this before him without having trouble or treachery in mind, but that he could handle when the time came.
Ahmed relaxed alone in his windowless chamber, its thick stone walls effectively shielding his thoughts. Draco had taken the bait. Like tough meat, the Northmen would take forever to chew up. And Draco was unstable: the frustration would destroy his judgment. He would undoubtedly eliminate the Northmen as a problem, but by then his army would be reduced and demoralized and his prestige broken.
IV
Pinnace Alpha was by no means the most sophisticated craft ever built. New Home had inherited the technical and scientific knowledge of late twenty-first century Earth, much of it, stored in books and tapes. But her culture was agrarian and her high tech industry non-existent, whether cybernetics, intramolecular, biosynthetics, or electronics. Sophisticated components couldn’t be ordered from a contractor; there were no contractors. They were handcrafted in the shop or the lab, or done without. It hadn’t even been possible to go out and buy much of the requisite shop and lab equipment; they’d had to be handcrafted too.
But she was easy to fly.
Now Alpha coasted downward through the ionosphere along a gravitic vector extending through Contact Prime, the AG coils generating only enough to hold acceleration within safe limits. As they approached the F1 layer, Matthew eased in the accumulator, slowing for entry and continuing to decelerate. Soon they were no longer approaching a planet; they seemed instead to be above the ground and dropping downward.