Warlord (50 page)

Barholm's face was unreadable as he nodded to Tzetzas. An
I
told you so
expression; the Chancellor's face looked as if he was sucking on a lemon for an instant, and his voice actually sounded animated, as good as a shout.

"Even if the expedition
is possible,
that's no reason to
do
it," he said testily.

Raj rubbed a palm along his jaw; the sword-callus that ringed thumb and forefinger rasped on blue-jowled stubble.

"True, Chancellor, if only ordinary matters were at stake. But . . . well, religion may sound odd, in a soldier's mouth, and the Spirit knows a soldier is all I am. Gentlemen—" He glanced around the circle of faces. "Gentlemen, we
are
civilization; we
are
the last representatives of the Holy Federation. The Civil Government is not just another successor-state living in the ruins of sacredness; we have a
duty
to bring all the Earth—"

bellevue, Center interjected, earth later. 
 

"—
all
of the Earth and its people back into the Holy Federation and oneness with the Spirit of Man of the Stars. Isn't everyone—everyone, barbarian or Colonist or heretic—made in the Spirit's image? If we deny that, we deny the Spirit in ourselves, and our faith is a sham—"

His voice had risen; he cut himself off abruptly as he saw the others blink at his vehemence, flushing at the murmur of "hear, hear" from many of the other officers, the Supreme Reverend Syssup-Hierarch's gesture of blessing.

"And who should lead this expedition?" Barholm asked neutrally.

"The decision is yours, of course, Your Supremacy," Raj said awkwardly. "But I've thought about this for a long time, and in all honesty I feel that I would be the best choice."

i have thought about it for a thousand years . . . 
Center whispered at the back of his brain,
at last . . .  
 

Barholm nodded. "Let it be recorded that Messer Brigadier—no, we'd better make that Brigadier General Raj Ammenda Halgern da Luis Whitehall is appointed Field Commander of the expeditionary force to reclaim the sacred soil of Holy Federation from the Squadron barbarians, with viceregal authority while in the
barbaricum.
Let all servants of the Civil Government and Holy Church render lawful aid to him in this matter. Brigadier General Whitehall, please submit a list of units and commanders to
me
by . . . hmm, this time tomorrow for my consideration and approval."

He made a sharp gesture, and an aide lifted the cushion with the mace of office on it, going down on one knee before Raj. Raj lifted it in both hands and raised it to his lips; the officers raised a sharp cheer of approval, formal and brief.

The Governor looked around the ranked officers, brows raised. "If there's no further
advice?
" he said with heavy irony. "No?"

The Supreme Reverend Syssup-Hierarch began the elaborate ceremony of dismissal. Holding his amulet and making the keying gesture of prayer with the others, Raj almost smiled at the looks of envy some gave him out of the corners of their eyes.

Envy for a man who's just condemned himself to death, he thought. The mace seemed heavier than worlds.

East Residence sat on a peninsula that jutted out like a thumb from the foothills of the coast range to the west, enclosing a narrow tongue of water on its south side. Eastward was the estuary of the Hemmar River, flowing from the south out into the Midworld Sea. Both moons were down; the Palace and the inner districts around it were bright with gas streetlights, while the bulk of the capital was a lumpy darkness of buildings and hills, black picked out by the yellow dots of lamps. Off in the west there was a sullen light from the foundries and factories, while to the east on the highest point the gold Starburst on the Temple's dome was underlit by electric arc-lights and touched by the first rays of the sun. There had been no night at the harbor-side, with thousands of torches to magnify the gaslights.

It was a cool spring morning, the sky cloudy and dark and drizzling down a thin mist of rain; coal smoke drifted down from the city's hills. The bitter smell of it mixed with the silty sewage-tainted tar stink of the harbor, and the smells of thousands of dogs and tens of thousands of men embarking.

The first ships of the Civil Government's fleet were making way out of the inner harbor, but the naval docks were still in a state of barely-organized chaos. Stubby little paddle-tugs and twenty-oar galleys were towing the big three-master cargo ships out east past the breakwaters; as each cast loose the sails went up with a series of rhythmic jerks and the long hulls heeled sharply, catching the northerly wind. Others were still loading, endless files of slave longshoremen trotting up the gangplanks with sacks and crates, the timbers of the cranes groaning as they swung field-guns and wagons aboard. Troopers were leading their riding dogs through side-doors in the hulls of specially fitted transports; most of them had thrown their jackets over the dogs' heads, for the comfort of darkness and familiar smell, but there was a constant whining and occasional outbreaks of thunder-deep barking from the big animals. The infantry stood in ordered clumps further inland by company columns. A hundred or so was the limit for a single ship, and it also served to discourage the press-ganged sailors from deserting.

Raj watched from the shadow of a crane as one unit made ready to embark:

"Company A, 17th Kelden Foot!
Alo sinstra, waymanos!
By the left, forward!" The soldiers marched bowed slightly under pack and rifle, a long centipede of maroon-clad legs and blue-jacketed bodies, faces stolid-set under their bowl-helmets as they followed the furled battalion standard. The hobnails clashed on the granite paving, and the men began a hoarse chanting:

"
March! The mud is cakin' good about our trousies
Front! Eyes front, an' watch the color-casin's drip.
Front! the faces of the women in the houses
Ain't the kind of thing to take aboard the ship.
"

Star Spirit be with them all,
he thought. Raj was standing by a warship; they would cast off last, being all steam-powered. Black smoke poured from the tall twin funnels on each; they were low-slung snaky craft, with big boxlike wooden covers for the paddlewheels on each side of the midships deckhouse, an iron-clad ram at the bows and six light breech-loaders along each side. Those were nearly hidden by the ton-weight wicker baskets of coal standing on the decks, crowding right up to the masts fore and aft.

"There's something wrong with the coal?" Raj asked the man beside him.

"Messer Whitehall, there's not much
right
with it," Muzzaf Kerpatik said. He sneered, the flash of white teeth brilliant against teak-dark skin and his pointed beard and mustache. "Half of it is shale—and the rest is soft, not hard anthracite. Half the price of good steam coal. Not one half the heating power."

"Tzetzas," Raj said with weary resignation, straightening. The big crane above them chuffed as the handler eased the steam-powered winch into action and swung the heavy net of fuel onto the warship's deck.

Muzzaf was a Komarite, from one of the southern border cities along the Colonial frontier; one of the strange new class of monetary risk-takers, men who invested large sums in manufacture or trade yet were not really merchants or moneylenders or artisans. It still seemed a little unnatural to Raj, gaining wealth without inheriting or plundering it.

"Back in Komar I thought myself wicked because I entered a conspiracy with the Chancellor's men to bilk the Fisc of soldiers' pay," he said. Neither of them needed to add that it was Raj Whitehall who had accepted his repentance, when that conspiracy left Muzzaf's native city defenseless. And Raj who had protected him from the Chancellor since. "Tzetzas . . . since coming to the capital, I have seen his hand in everything," the Komarite confirmed. "He has interests in the Coast Range mines." He straightened, flicking at the black dust on his brown cotton coat and the cloak draped over his arm; normally he was something of a peacock, but today he had limited it to a few pieces of silver jewelry and a spray of colored sauroid feathers clipped to the brim of his fore-and-aft peaked cap. "Messer, I'm surprised anyone ever makes a profit on
anything
in this city. Except the Chancellor and his cronies, of course."

Raj nodded. "I appreciate your work, Mezzaf. You've been invaluable. Try looking into the rest of the supply situation, would you?"

"As you wish, Messer," Mezzaf replied; he bowed and touched brow and lips, already looking abstracted. Behind him the sound of the soldiers' singing faded as they boarded the ship:

"
Cheer! An' we'll never march to victory.
Cheer! An' we'll never live to hear the cannon roar!
The Large Birds o' Prey
They will carry us away,
An' you'll never see your soldiers anymore!
"

The general gave a hitch at his sword belt as he walked out to meet the commanders one last time. They were standing in anonymous clumps, the heavy military cloaks about their shoulders. His eyes seemed to be ridged with sand, and everything stood out with a slightly feverish clarity. Complete exhaustion: about what you would expect putting this all together on short notice.

Barton Foley stood scratching his chin
carefully
with the point of the hook where his left hand used to be, his right clasped in Gerrin Staenbridge's. Jorg Menyez was talking to Mekkle Thiddo, who was still inclined to look admiringly at his own Battalion Commander's stars now and then; he had been a gentleman-ranker once, and a Lieutenant until the Komar campaign. Kaltin Gruder was saying goodbye to an implausibly large collection of ladies, most of them crying too hard to quarrel with each other as he shooed them firmly away. M'lewis was off to one side, conferring with a few of his Scouts; several of them managed the minor miracle of looking more furtively unsavory than their commander.

 . . . and there were the strangers. Ehwardo Poplanich, Thom's cousin, for one. A little older, but with the same thin intellectual's face, a little uncertain in this company. Anhelino Dalhouse for another; and Mihwel Berg, the Administrative Service panjandrum, sulking as usual. He was supposed to set up the civil administration in the Southern Territories, once they took it back; talking to Suzette seemed to be animating him a little. Barholm had said he was a first-rate man who'd be a great deal of help. So far there was fuck-all sign of it, which was odd since the Governor was a judge of men, in his way.

Except he saddled me with Dalhouse,
Raj thought sourly. That was fatigue speaking; he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in a week or more . . . about par for the course, out on campaign. Dalhouse probably had too many connections for Barholm to ignore. Besides that, Raj had asked for all the units that campaigned with him in the east—slightly suspicious, from a Governor's point of view.

"Good morning, Messers," he said.

One of the servants handed him his helmet, a plain bowl of black iron with a riveted neckguard of chain mail on leather at the back. The rank-badge over the brows was new, an eighteen-point star of gold and silver on a blue shield, orbited by seven more. He buckled it on, the familiar weight making the war seem real after the paperwork and quartermaster's nightmare of the last month. Dalhouse sneered slightly;
his
helmet was polished bronze with inlay in niello and silver, and the neckguard was torosauroid hide traded down from the northern steppes, the type that grew natural crystals of metal in the skin, brought to a high polish.

"Now, I'm going to give you some final instructions," Raj continued, deliberately dropping his voice slightly. Men leaned forward, straining to hear. "The fleet has been divided into ten sections, plus the naval escorts. While at sea, instructions from
any
naval officer commanding an escort are to be accepted as if they were mine. Is that understood?"

He waited until all the ten section officers nodded. "Admiral Gharderini, your first priority will be to keep the fleet together. If any vessel becomes separated for any reason whatsoever, the fleet will halt until the escorts bring in the strays. If we're scattered by weather, everyone will head for the assigned rendezvous for that section of the journey—check your maps, Messers. Anyone who gets ahead of the fleet may pray to the Spirit of Man of the Stars for help, for he'll get none from me. And anyone"—he paused—"anyone whosoever who turns back without authorization will be shot, and every officer on his ship, and every tenth enlisted man taken at random. Master Sergeant da Cruz, you may inform the men of that."

Slight chance anyone could use a little bad weather as an excuse after that; even if the threat was not altogether credible—many of the officers had family connections powerful enough to rescue them from anything short of heresy—but the men would believe it, and likely shoot anyone risking a decimation. There was a slight stir among the officers, and several of the Companions smiled. Several of the non-Companions looked again at the men who had campaigned with Raj Whitehall, noting the scars and missing limbs and limps; many of them looked a little green. There had been no great rush of commanders volunteering their units for this expedition. Dalhouse waited with elaborate patience, fingers tapping at the glossy leather of his Sam Browne belt.

"Final dispositions will be made at Sadler Island, according to what intelligence information we can pick up there"—
because the Ministry of Barbarians has dick-all here—
"and under
no circumstances
is anyone to attempt to enter Port Murchison without orders. We'll probably land well south of the city and work north by land."

Dalhouse snorted. Raj looked at him mildly, raising his brows. "Yes, Messer?" he said.