The Shasht War (2 page)

"She still wants a royal indemnity for her trees. She says the orchard is one of the best in the whole valley."

Thru sighed. Getting a royal permit meant someone had to slog all the way up to Sulmo, get in line at the palace, and wangle the indemnity out of the royal bureaucracy.

If he just sent a simple written request, it would be a month before he heard anything. And by then the brigade might well have moved somewhere else and no longer need to camp in the Lady Alvil's damned orchards.

If he'd thought Ilb could be spared he might have sent him to Sulmo, but the major was dealing with a thousand things a day. Ilb was essential here at camp.

Sergeant Burrum was likewise necessary to the running of the brigade. And in Sulmo, when dealing with the desk clerks and the doorkeepers, he would not be as effective as the wily and efficient Ilb.

Kipes? But Kipes, too, was essential. He knew where all the paperwork was.

Thru put it out of mind for a moment as he examined the next report, which was about a shipment of new weapons from Sulmo: two dozen more of the small pikes, called spontoons, which had hooks as well as spearheads. The hooks allowed the spontoon bearer to pull an opponent off balance before thrusting home with the spear. The spontoons were proving popular with the mots, who were training enthusiastically at the one-two motions of pulling and stabbing.

He set it down. Well, there was progress in some directions anyway.

But, he sighed inwardly, it never seemed like enough. There would be war this summer. It was inevitable, and if the army they had built was defeated, then millions of folk could die. The men had shown that they were out to exterminate all the peoples of the Land, even the helpless chooks.

Something about a scroll farther down the pile caught his eye, and he reached and pulled it free.

His eyes widened as he saw the writing and recognized the hand. He fumbled for his knife and slit the seal.

Nuza had not written for more than a month. She had been in Lushtan when last he'd heard, still working on the production of bandage and splints for the coming campaign season.

The words swam into view as he read. She was in Sulmo, having come south with a donkey train of war supplies. She included an address in the Outer Ward of the great city. She would be there for a while, perhaps all summer; it depended on what orders came down for her. She hoped he was well, sent love and kisses, and prayed that they would see each other soon, somehow.

At once all his responsibilities, his regiments, his lines of Quarters vanished from his mind and were replaced by the thought of her. Nuza in her acrobat costume, tumbling and leaping with amazing grace. Nuza, in his arms, her body pressed close to his.

He stepped out of the tent and stared off northward toward the hills. She was just on the other side of those round purple knobs. A day's march away.

The thought of Nuza so close by gnawed at him all evening. He could make it to the city in a night's hike if he pushed it. All he was doing here anyway was watching the regiments drill. And for one night he and Nuza could be together again, like in the old days, before the war destroyed their lives.

He wrote out orders for Ter-Saab and the Grys and handed them over personally. He would be back within three days. While he was gone, Ter-Saab would assume brigade command because he had been a colonel for three months longer than the Grys. The Grys made a sour face at this news, but accepted it. Ter-Saab gave the usual weary shake of his shoulders.

Thru ate a hearty breakfast an hour before dawn, then set off with a small pack, his bow and his staff, just as he might have traveled in the days before the war.

He pushed himself through the day, reached the hills in the early afternoon, and began to climb. That night he rested briefly while he ate a meal of dried bushcurd and twice-baked bread. Then, after a drink of cold water from a spring, he resumed the march under the light of the half-moon. The white chalk of the road glowed, and he followed it northward while the heavens wheeled above.

It had been almost a year now, a year like a giant wound in his life. Ever since that dismal day in the village of Sonf when she'd gone south and he'd gone north to join Toshak and the war. The coming of the men of Shasht had changed everything. The easy life of the Land had ended in a moment and been replaced ever since by war, terror, and preparation for more war.

It was hard being sundered in this way, and when time hung heavy on his hands, Thru had to fight mean and petty thoughts. Why did he have to serve in Sulmo? Why couldn't he join the bandage makers in Lushtan? Then he would be with Nuza all the time.

But then Toshak's words would come back to him and stiffen his resolve.

"Our lives are over, the lives that we knew. Until this war is over we are nothing but soldiers."

So, he wasn't "Seventy-seven-Run Thru Gillo" anymore. He was a brigade commander and he bore a heavy responsibility.

And yet, now had come this opportunity for them to be together. During a time when there was little happening in the field.

He kept up a hard pace, and long before morning he was going downhill. He stepped lively, marching for mile after mile, something he'd grown accustomed to during the past year. Something hard, almost like iron itself came up in the body and gave him the strength to go on, one foot after the other.

At dawn he stopped to drink from another cold spring and splashed some water on his face and down his back. Then he took up his staff once more and continued. By late morning he was in the farm country just south of the city. In late morning he passed through the village of Kachiesek and over the first of the bridges that spanned the many channels of the Sulo. The high outer walls of Sulmo were soon in view.

The white stucco buildings glowed in the southern sun. The harshness of the midday light still struck him as strange, even after spending half a year in the southern land. A long pennon flew from the gate tower, white-checked with red squares. Culpura was in the city. Anyone who needed to speak to an Assenzi was free to call on him. The Assenzi were beings of an ancient kind, smaller than mots, with lives that stretched back into distant antiquity. In most parts of the Land they were regarded as founts of wisdom. Only in Sulmo was there widespread suspicion of the Assenzi, a legacy of the reign of King Ueillim long ago.

The sight of the city spurred him on, driving his boot heels down the road. In the heat of the day, he'd removed his jacket and shirt and tied them up in his pack, so when he reached great South Gate, he stopped just long enough to rinse his fur off under the pump and put his uniform back together.

He was Colonel Gillo now, commander of the Sixth Brigade of the Sulmese army, and he had to look the part even though his uniform was tattered after sixth months of active service. His grey outer coat was newer issue and still had its nap, but the brown inner tunic was a ruin, as was his shirt. Still, he tied it all together as best he might and hoped his coat would cover the worst. Finally he adjusted the red wooden peg that he wore in the top buttonhole of his coat, which marked his rank as a brigadier colonel.

Inside the outer gates was the visible evidence of Sulmo's decline. The Outer Ward had returned to vegetable gardens for the most part. What buildings were left were scattered about like small villages inside the outer wall. The real city had retreated back inside its original walls, which were still ahead of him, two miles down the road.

The road now ran between gardens and small fields. It could as easily have been countryside as part of a great city with trees along the road, small green fields with young crops, and strips of houses, or perhaps a larger building. But everywhere, in the fields or in the houses, the old city clung to its sleepy southern rhythm. At noon, by ancient tradition, everyone ate a big lunch and then took a nap. The city didn't get going again until the middle of the afternoon. Nor was this restricted to the city itself, it was the habit throughout the Sulmo Valley.

In the winter, when he'd first taken command of the regiments, he'd had problems in getting Southern recruits back on the parade ground right after the midday meal. They'd cussed a lot about "Northern ways" back then. But they were volunteers and after a while accepted the necessity of discipline.

The only traffic he passed consisted of a few donkey carts until he entered the inner gate. Inside the old city the air bustled. Sulmo had not been able to entirely escape the upheaval produced by the invasion from Shasht.

On the Street of Charms he pushed through crowds of soldiers and workers and made his way to the warehouse on Dock Street, which was the headquarters of the new army. Fourteen thousand mots had responded to the King of Sulmo's muster. Eight thousand had now been trained and deployed across the southern counties from Blana to Reel Annion. Six thousand were still training in Sulmo. Inside he found the usual hum of bureaucracy. He handed over a small sack of letters from the mots of his regiment. Then he dug out his request for the indemnity and hunted for his friend Meu of Deepford.

Meu was now an important officer of supply, in charge of feeding the vast establishment of professional soldiers that filled the streets outside. Finding him took a little work, since Meu was hidden behind several layers of booths and offices, but he emerged immediately when he heard that it was Brigade-Colonel Gillo waiting to see him.

They embraced, took the time to look each other up and down. Both still bore the scars of their encounter with pyluk in the Farblow Hills some years before. Indeed, few mots who had come so close to armed pyluk, had lived to tell the tale. The green-skinned lizard men of the eastern deserts had a well-deserved reputation for ferocity.

"How did you find the time to come up here?"

"Well, I was actually the only one who wasn't absolutely needed."

"How long can you stay?"

"I'm going back tomorrow."

"Ah." Meu nodded. "Well, that's quite a hike."

"We're all used to it now. Glaine's a big place when you're trying to cover all of it against raids."

Meu understood. He'd been out there in the field in the early part of the winter, before being posted to his current position.

"Here's my problem," said Thru, handing Meu the paper on the Alvil's orchard back at camp. Thru explained that he needed more space for his troops to set up tents. Meu nodded briskly; this was a familiar problem.

"I think we can get this indemnity written up pretty fast. I can put in with Major Huba, who feeds those requests to the royal legal department. Huba owes me a favor or two. The King does not need to seal it personally, since it is a document of the Second Tier, you see."

"Well, that's good to hear. I absolutely have to go back tomorrow morning."

"And one night of true love, eh?"

"You've seen her?"

"Yes, she sought me out when she arrived. Wanted to know all about your adventures."

"Such as they've been."

"You were there in Bilauk together weren't you?"

"Yes." Thru shook his head to dispell the images that name brought up. For a moment Thru was back there in that ruined village, smoke still swirling up from the blackened houses. He could see the mound of heads that the men had left on the jetty. Every person in the village, bar a tiny handful of survivors, had been beheaded and their bodies taken as meat. Meu shifted uneasily on his feet.

"Yes. Well, let's go find Major Huba and get this indemnity process in motion."

Huba turned out to be a charming old brilby with white side whiskers that grew down below his chin.

"Gracious," he said. "I know the dear old Alvil of Panute. Oh, yes."

The indemnity was written up in no time, then signed and sealed. Thru and Meu parted company with a hug and a promise to dine together the next time Thru reached the city. Then Thru headed for the Outer Ward.

Whiteflower Lane was a street he knew well. On that street were a few houses and three famous inns. During the previous winter when he'd been billetted in Sulmo, Thru had visited them often. Even in wartime these kitchens turned out food in the manner of the Land.

Gardens filled with lush vegetable growth went all the way up to the edge of the street. No space was wasted. The fragrance of gardenias filled the air. He found the house quite easily, two stories of wood on a brick foundation. His knock brought her to the door.

"Thru!" was all she had time to say before she vanished into his arms. They stayed that way, rocking back and forth in the doorway for a long time.

"Oh, my love, my darling, my only Thru," she babbled as they kissed and nuzzled and kissed again. After a separation of almost a year, it was almost overwhelming to be together once more.

They sat together on the little bench at the back of the whitewashed cottage. The garden was filled with blooming asteria and wild yellow foxgloves. Thru felt alternating surges of wonder and pure happiness. This was something he'd dreamed of for most of the last year.

He saw her examining him, seeing the red pin of rank on his coat, and the frayed edges and worn cuffs of most of his clothes.

"How did you do it?" she said, somewhere between tears and joy. "I thought you would be tied up in Glaine for months."

"I had business here." He grinned at her look of disbelief.

"Really. I had to get some legal paper signed. My brigade is jammed into a tiny camp barely big enough for one regiment. We have to have more space."

Well, I'm glad you have an excuse. But couldn't you send someone?"

"I had to see you."

"Oh, Thru."

Eventually they sat together in her room upstairs, wrapped in a sheet, backs against the wall while the sun threw long setting beams through the window onto the opposite wall.

"Did you know that this day last year was the day we left Tamf for the last time? Old Tamf, the way it was." Her voice caught. There were tears on her cheeks.

"No," he whispered. "I didn't. I haven't kept track, too much to do."

By the Spirit, their whole world had changed since that day. Lovely old Tamf had been burned to the ground by the invaders.