"There!" T'Leen said. "Did you see that riposte in secundus K'Katal made?"
"I don't even understand what you just said," Kosutic replied, tapping her mastoid bone to get the toot to translate into Standard. "What's secundus?"
"Down here." T'Leen gestured with a false-hand. "Great move! I've only seen it once before, in Pa'alot. Very difficult to execute—you have to have your feet positioned just so. But if you perfect it, it's very difficult to defeat." He pantomimed the move and grimaced when the necessary contortion drew a twinge from some scar tissue. "Ouch."
"Where'd you learn all this?" Koberda asked. "I mean, what? Were you a guard?"
"Yes," T'Leen said, abruptly losing the animation he'd drawn from his explanation. "But not for a long time. My fighting days are over."
"He was from Voitan," Kosutic said quietly.
"I was an apprentice weapons maker," the old merchant explained. "I'd traveled with a caravan to T'an K'tass when word came back that the Kranolta had swept down and taken all of the outlying cities. Gone was S'Lenna, shining city of lapis and copper. Gone was fair H'nar, perhaps the most beautiful city I've ever seen in all my travels. Gone were all the other sister cities of far Voitan.
"Voitan held, though. We had word through the few who could trade with the Kranolta without losing their horns. The barbarians attacked her repeatedly, but the walls of Voitan were high, and they not only had great stores of food, but could still trade across the ranges to the cities on the far side.
"T'an K'tass knew the worth of Voitan. No one in all the lands knew the making of weapons as did the Steel Guild of Voitan. No one else knew the secrets of the Water Blade. And Voitan and the region around it were the source of most of the metals that T'an K'tass and the other southern city-states depended upon.
"The Council of T'an K'tass called upon the other cities to send a force against the Kranolta, to drive through to the aid of Voitan. But no such thing had ever been done, and the other cities didn't see the need. They saw only the wealth of Voitan, as the Kranolta had, and laughed at the fall of all that fair land."
His face turned very bitter, and he became quiet, looking back over the years at that memory.
"The King of Pa'alot and the Houses of this stinking Q'Nkok both repudiated us. That was before the House of Xyia arose to the kingship. I will admit that Xyia spoke for us, or so I have heard.
"I was on the delegation from T'an K'tass that went to Pa'alot to plead our case, but they said that each state must survive or fall on its own. They asked what they had gotten from Voitan that they should risk their money and goods, and to that question I could make no answer." He clapped his false-hands in sadness. "I could not answer for my lords of Voitan.
"So T'an K'tass sent out a force by herself. And we met the Kranolta in the Dantar Hills." He clapped his false-hands again, softly. "We were defeated. The Kranolta were as numerous as the stars in the sky, as the trees in the forest! And fierce, fierce!
"We fought through the day and into the next, but we were defeated. Finally, we could fight no more and retreated in good order. But the Kranolta pursued us to T'an K'tass." He clapped his false-hands once more. "They followed us wherever we went."
"And they took that city," Kosutic concluded grimly. "And two others in the area. And that was the last news of Voitan that anyone has heard."
"Some few of us remain," T'Leen said sadly. "A few of the House Tan escaped with the force. They're doing well financially; they got out most of T'an K'tass' specie and went into the banking business. We talk from time to time.
"And there are a few left of Voitan. Such as myself. A few." The Mardukan shook his head. "So very few."
"How long ago was this?" Koberda asked.
"I was a youth," T'Leen admitted. "Long, long ago."
"No seasons," Kosutic pointed out with a shrug. "No sun. They don't count time like we do, and your guess is as good as mine how old any of these guys are."
"Hang on a second," Bosum said, setting down a glass of water. "This is the place we've got to go next?"
"You betcha," Kosutic said with a grim smile. "Or at least the way we have to go. Right through them Kra... Kra..."
"Kranolta," Poertena said helpfully.
"Yeah. Them bastards," Kosutic said with a laugh. "I'd suggest you make sure your plasma rifle's in good shape, Marine."
"Yeah," the newly arrived corporal agreed. "No shit."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Roger moved the blade across slowly, trying to remember the way the move felt.
"What is that?" Cord asked. The shaman had begun teaching the human his own half-remembered lessons in the sword, but this move had a look he didn't recognize.
"I took a semester of something called 'kendo' when I was in school," Roger replied, frowning in concentration. His feet were wrong, and he knew it. "But I can't remember the moves!"
He made a small adjustment, but it was still wrong, and he growled inwardly in frustration as the ghost of Roger III and all those generations of MacClintock history fanatics enjoyed a hearty horselaugh at his expense. He'd fought tooth and nail to avoid his kendo classes. Officially, he had objected to them because they took time away from his other martial arts classes; in fact, as he'd made certain his mother knew, he had simply refused to embrace their stupid traditions. It had been a petty triumph, perhaps, yet one he had treasured at the time when she finally gave up and let him drop out.
Of course, that had been then, and this was now... .
Cord cocked his head and examined the stance. The four arms of the Mardukans meant that many of the methods of the humans, and not just weapons craft alone, were different in detail. But despite both the inevitable differences and the partial nature of what Roger recalled, Cord recognized a more advanced technique when he saw one.
The two had been working out with the sword Kosutic had procured for the past two days while the company rested and the commanders waited for better information. Pahner had joined them from time to time to watch Cord at work, and generally approved. The old scummy had been imparting far more than just weapons instruction; maybe what Roger had truly needed all along was a coach.
"It is always about balance, young prince," the Mardukan said, walking around Roger as the human moved through his kata. "You're off your center."
Roger stopped, and the Mardukan looked at his foot placement, then grunted. He tapped one foot with the butt of his spear.
"Try from there," he commanded, and Roger took the steps of the kata again, and smiled.
"You did it again, you old sorcerer."
"You need to learn to find your balance better," the Mardukan said, with a clop of teeth. "If you don't have your balance, everything is harder. If you have your balance it is not necessarily easy. But it is far easier than otherwise."
He looked up as PFC Kraft entered the salle. The training room was in a part of the castle distant from the visitors' quarters, so there was a squad of Marines outside the door, and the rifleman tapped his helmet to indicate that he'd received a transmission.
"Captain Pahner says he'd like to see you, Your Highness. At your earliest convenience."
Roger opened his mouth to retort angrily at the interruption of his session, then closed it again as Cord laid a hand on his arm.