"We'll die heroically," said Harkint, who still didn't trust me.
"I'd rather live," I said.
"We know your preferences," he answered coldly.
"I'd rather all of us lived. Because it won't take long with Dinte in command before people start clamoring to have Father back."
"It wouldn't take long now, if you weren't with us," said another soldier, and a murmur of assent came from the others gathered in the large room of the house. Father frowned at him, but the soldier was right. I was Father's chief liability. Lose me, and he'd be able to raise more of an army. Maybe ten, fifteen thousand more. Still not enough.
"I have a plan," I said. "And it will work."
The next morning we set out along the Sweet River. We made no secret of our direction and we traveled at a leisurely pace. The river ran southwest, and anyone with half a brain could guess we were heading for Mueller-on-the-Sea, the great port on the Rebel River delta where the fresh water spewed out into the saltwater Sleeve. Strategically it was vital, and the fleet, if we could reach it first, would take us to Huntington, where the troops would still be loyal to Father and, not having seen the devastation, might not hate me as much. There we could wait and prepare an invasion.
This meant, of course, that Dinte and the Nkumai would race, us for the fleet and get there first. I had no objection. After all, even if we got to Huntington safely we would be permanently in exile; with the Nkumai getting both our iron and their own, there would be no resisting them. So when we reached the point where we had to leave the river no matter where we were going, since the river jogged to the west, I ordered our army to begin a doubletime race, not southwest for Mueller-on-the-Sea, but southeast for the Great Bend of the Mueller River, where we would be free to go eastward, gathering strength among the recently conquered and none-too-docile populations of Bird, Jones, Robles, and Hunter. It wasn't the world's likeliest or safest plan, but it was the best I could think of at the time.
We didn't bother galloping-- we went at the wagons' best pace, which was still a good deal better, with each wagon lightly loaded, than Nkumai's army of former tree climbers could make on foot. I could only hope that the enemy had got far enough westward, in the wrong direction, so that we could reach the bend before them. If we did, they'd never overtake us heading east, and we'd live to fight another day.
And if they did reach us, I had still another plan, but it was for the time when we had nothing left to lose.
As we rode southeast, there was little for me to do. Father knew his men and no one was eager to take orders from me. Instead I thought, and the subject that most often came to mind was the imposter, the all-too-true Lanik who was now out of a job.
It was an interesting speculation, what his life had been like. His creation had been bad enough for me-- but for him, the first stirrings of consciousness began with someone who looked exactly like him trying to bash in his brains with a rock. And then what had the Nkumai put him through, believing he was me, before they finally caught on to what was happening? If I had been haunted by him before, in dreams, now he haunted my waking hours as I pictured the hatred they must have taught to him. You're a monster to the men of Mueller, they must have told him. They'll kill you if they ever know who you are. But if you work with us, we'll install you on the throne and you can show them that you are someone to regard, with fear if not respect.
Had he actually led their armies? Perhaps. Were my memories transferred to him along withmy body? If so, he would be a match for me on any battlefield, since he'd know my moves before I made them. Surely they'd keep him with them for that purpose if no other.
Whatever role he had actually played before, he was once again betrayed, unceremoniously dropped from any important role. Perhaps they've already killed him, I thought. Or perhaps he's feeling as hopeless as I, knowing that there is no one more hated than he in all the West, and yet truly deserving none of the hatred at all.
I thought of Mwabao Mawa and wanted to strangle her.
No murder, I told myself. No killing. I have heard the song of the earth, and that is stronger than hate.
At such times I would ride off from the army, several kilometers ahead, and he on the soil and speak to the living rock. Since I feared that I couldn't control myself, I let the rock control me, restore me, bring me peace.
"They've set the Cramers free and they're taking Mueller slaves," one soldier who joined our army told us in horror. The reaction was electric-- many of our soldiers had families in West Mueller, where the Cramers might be creating havoc with no one to defend our people. I was not surprised that our numbers began diminishing as soldiers slipped off to head southwest. I was even less surprised when most of our scouts failed to return. Still, we had to try to hold our army: I insisted that Father stop asking for volunteers for scouting missions.
We were only thirty kilometers from the Great Bend when the most important information of all came from someone we had never thought to see again."
"Homarnoch," Father whispered as he saw the man madly driving a wagon along the road we had just come down. "Homarnoch! Here!" he cried, and the old doctor was soon beside us. We called a rest; the soldiers stopped on the road.
"No use," Homamoch said. "I've killed a brace of horses coming to tell you. The Nkumai didn't take your bait. They only sent Dinte and his force to Mueller-by-the-Sea, and when you turned southeast the rest of them were ahead of you all the way. Not five kilometers off they're waiting for you. They've been at the Great Bend for days."
Father called his commanders and gave them orders to have our men prepare for a much faster march.
"We'll fight them and win," Harkint insisted.
"We'll escape and survive," Father answered, and Harkint went off in a rage.
While the preparations were going on, Homarnoch told us how and why he had come. "They were going to take everything-- all our work for thousands of years. I wouldn't have that. Not those tree-dwelling apes."
I didn't bother telling him that those tree-dwelling apes had given faster-than-light travel to the rest of the universe.
"So I poisoned the rads," Homarnoch said.
Father was shocked. "Killed them!"
"They were five tons worth of iron on the hoof, Ensel, and I couldn't let the inkers have that. So I poisoned them. Not even their fingenails'll be worth a gram of iron in trade."
I said nothing, but remembered a time when I had had five legs and an extra nose and still believed I was a man.
"I also got the library. The essential records. The theory. It's all in that wagon, " he said, "and I burned the rest. With Dinte's men in charge of the city, nobody even thought to keep me in."
"A master stroke," Father said. Homarnoch beamed with pride.
"'Having the books with us doesn't answer the real question, " I said. "What do we do now?"
"Harkint wants to attack," Father said with a wry smile.
"Harkint's a heroic ass," I answered. "But I can see why he wants to do it. There's nowhere else to go. Dinte's men are between us and the sea, and there's nothing in the north but Epson. They won't be inclined to provoke Nkumai by taking us in."
"Dinte's no match for us."
"He outnumbers us five to one. With odds like that they don't need a competent commander."
We sat in silence. Homarnoch mumbled something about needing to check the horses. And then Harkint came back. The troops were ready. "And what I want to know is, are we going into battle or running from it?"