Doom's Break (14 page)

Nuza frowned. Could they never be rid of the fear? The terror of war?

"But, enough of that. I have good news from Sulmo. The men have abandoned three of the forts and moved into a single fort on Pelican Point. We have agreed that they will erect a larger place there, from which they will disembark when they leave our shores forever."

"Where will they go then?"

"To Mauste for a while, at least a year, perhaps two, and then they will sail away, back to their homeland."

"May that day come!"

"They will need our help before then. We will have to help them outfit their fleet, and dry and store enough food to keep them alive. We do not have the animal foods that they like. They will have to adjust to bushpod and bushcurd."

"Let them. It is nothing compared to what we have had to live with because of them."

Toshak nodded, then took her hand in his. "You will be visited soon by several Assenzi. They have a great many questions for you. They also want to meet with the Emperor. Do you think he will allow it?"

"I think so, but he does not completely trust them."

"Yes, he does not know them. He thinks they are like his enemy."

"Our enemy, Toshak."

"Yes."

"Toshak, dearest, did you ever learn what exactly happened to Thru? His body was never found."

Toshak's face fell once more. He squeezed her hand. "His brigade was annihilated at the battle of Farnem." Toshak was struggling with the hate in his voice. "We found very few of our people afterward."

Her eyes widened. "Do you think?"

"Yes, they were taken by the men for food."

Pelican Point, the mots called this place. A sweeping hook of sand and gravel extending from the forest out into the bay as if it were an arm attempting to gather up the riches of the water and drag them ashore.

Aeswiren stood atop the little knoll at the end of the hook. His boat was beached on the shingle down below. Klek was standing by. There were no pelicans on the point that day, just six thousand men. A great mass of faces, hushed, expectant, looking up at him like children.

Aeswiren grinned. This was where his power lay. Let the Old One fiddle with its evil magic. He—Ge Vust, humble fisherman of the Gzia coast—now known as Aeswiren the Third, Emperor of all Shasht, had the power to arouse and motivate fighting men.

"All right, boys!" He raised his hands and spoke in a firm voice. It was better to make them strain to hear him, especially at the beginning. "Among you there must be a few who served in the imperial guard at some time or other. Would some of you old veterans step out and come a little closer?"

Some jostling here and there broke up the mass of eyes, beards, noses. Seven, then eight older fellows emerged. All but one were sergeants with red plumes on their helmets.

"Come on over," said Aeswiren, more loudly. He made a big gesture with his arm. In front of this many, you had to pantomime a bit, exaggerating everything so they all saw it.

They crowded up. He recognized a couple of them, and he struggled to recall their names.

"You!" he bellowed. "Aktinus, isn't it? Aktinus of Gzia Gi?"

"Emperor!" roared the fellow, a massive bull of a man, six and a half feet tall, with a face like a rocky crag. The others were quick to follow his lead, slamming to attention. "Emperor!" they called in unison, arms flashing up, fist clenched in the imperial salute.

"Emperor!" echoed the response from the first rank, who had seen Aktinus's reaction close up. A moment later, the rest of them took up the cry.

Aeswiren raised his hands and called for quiet, but it took three or four more "Emperors" before they would quiet down.

"Come up here, Aktinus."

The huge sergeant lumbered up the slope. Before he reached the top, Aeswiren stopped him with a gesture. He didn't want to be dwarfed by the fellow. It was a piece of sorcery he was trying to pull off here, and every angle had to be considered.

"Aktinus was in the guard a couple years back, isn't that right?"

"Correct, Lord."

"You must have volunteered for this expedition. You all volunteered, right?"

"Volunteers, sir!" they roared back.

"So, Aktinus, how would you say the mission has gone so far?"

Aktinus swallowed, looked Aeswiren in the eye. "Permission to speak my mind, sir, in a frank and open manner?"

"Permission to speak, Aktinus."

"It's been a complete, sorry mess, sir, from beginning to end."

A hush came over them. Aktinus had dared to express what they all thought but never dreamed of telling a superior; he had been allowed to complain directly to the Emperor. It was an intoxicating notion to every soldier.

"That bad, eh?"

They let out a collective sigh. Aeswiren heard it but refrained from smiling.

"Yes, sir."

"Why was that, Aktinus?"

"Begging your pardon, sir, but the generals we had were dolts. We only won one battle, and after that we ended up being chased off the mainland by the fornicating monkeys."

"Dolts?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, boys, I want you to know that I didn't choose the generals for this mission. I didn't even want this expedition. It was the priests who wanted it."

"Kill the sodomistic priests," said a soldier at the back, and everyone laughed, including Aeswiren.

"That's exactly what I plan to do. The priests have had their way with old Shasht for too long. It's time we straightened things out and took them down a peg or two!"

The men before the Emperor exploded into long, loud cheering.

The army was Aeswiren's. Wherever they were, the men went over to him as soon as they saw him and heard his voice.

He offered them an immediate end to the useless war against the mots.

"These folk, whom you call monkeys, are not our enemies. Our real enemies are the fornicating priests; they are responsible for this mess. I came here to get you boys out of this shit and back to Shasht, where you can help me bring an end to the whole damned priesthood and their tyranny. What say you?"

"Aeswiren!" they roared, flinging their right arms up in the imperial salute.

The army was his, but the fleet was another matter. Admiral Heuze and a few of the ship captains were ready to go over to him, but the majority were not. Ship captains were a different breed, accustomed to ruling their own little realms. Thousands of miles from home, after years of failures by the commanders of the colony expedition, they were not quite ready to accept that the Emperor himself had come all this way to join them.

Nebbeggebben had denounced the man now running the army as an impostor and put a price on his head. No one had dared to try and collect it, not with the six thousand men ashore ready to die for their Emperor. Yet the implications were clear to every captain: Nebbeggebben would have their heads at the slightest sign that they were going over to Aeswiren.

Meanwhile, the men ashore withheld water and food supplies from the ships.

A stalemate ensued. Days went by. Aeswiren understood the dangers very well. If the fleet pulled up anchor and sailed away, he'd have to build new ships from scratch and crew them with soldiers. In the meantime, elements of the fleet would return to Shasht and pass on the news of what was going on in the Land.

He had to move quickly.

And so, in the dead of night, a small boat rowed out toward the
Shark
, fourth in the line behind the flagship
Anvil
in the inshore squadron.

In the stateroom of the
Shark
, several nervous ship captains had gathered at Heuze's request. They were not a happy bunch, frightened of making a mistake in this situation and losing their heads.

"Damn you, Heuze, why didn't you just kill this bugger and keep it hushed up?" groused Captain Groth.

"Besides the fact that he's got six thousand men backing him? Let's just say this: I would rather fight with one hand tied behind my back for Aeswiren than for his son with both hands free."

There were wary nods of agreement. Nebbeggebben had never been popular.

"Well, I don't care who this fellow is who claims to be the Emperor. I have to have provisions. My crew are hungry."

"Damn your provisions," snapped Captain Egemel. "I need fresh water. Unless I can refill my casks in two days, my crew will be without anything to drink."

"We all have problems," said Heuze, raising his hands.

"We all have problems, all right," groused Groth, "even this Emperor of yours."

"He isn't mine alone, Groth. You swore your oath of fealty to him."

"I'll believe that when I see him, and not before."

The door had opened while Groth was speaking, and two men had entered. One was Filek Biswas, the well-known former chief surgeon of the fleet who had gone back to Shasht years before but had been rumored to have returned recently. The other was a taller man, broad-shouldered, with hair turning grey and features that were familiar to every man of Shasht who'd ever used an imperial coin.

The captains—Groth, Egermel, Herbest, and the rest—froze. Until this moment they had not really believed that it could be possible. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they had clung to the notion that this was an impostor who had the idiots in the army in his thrall.

"Your Majesty," said Heuze, hitching his crutch, bending at the knee, and bowing low. With alacrity the rest followed suit, even the clearly stunned Groth.

"At ease, gentlemen." Aeswiren strode farther into the room. He wore his breastplate, red cloak, sword, and greaves. He carried himself as if he were going into battle.

The captains remained agape.

"I gather that some of you don't quite believe that I'm me," said the Emperor with a fierce grin. Captain Groth, he noticed, had gone pale. "Well, get used to it, because I am me, and I am standing right before you."

Groth practically fell over himself in his effort to be first to kneel and kiss Aeswiren's hand. "Begging your pardon, Your Majesty. I couldn't imagine that you'd really come all this way."

"That is understandable. There are times when I can't quite believe it either."

They were still thunderstruck, staring at him with disbelieving eyes. Aeswiren turned to face Heuze again.

"Well, Admiral, what do you think? Am I Aeswiren, or am I not?"

"You are, Lord." Heuze bowed again. So did everyone else.

"Well, in that case, if we're agreed, then we need to have a little talk."

The ship captains listened as Aeswiren explained what he intended to do.

"Go back to Shasht?" asked one, when he was done.

"Yes," said Aeswiren. "We are not going to waste another drop of blood here. We will sail back to Shasht either next year or the summer after that."

There was no doubt in his voice. They all felt the heat of Aeswiren's will in those words.

"So be it," said Heuze. "From what you've said today, Your Majesty, it sounds like we're needed back there a lot more than we are here."

There were mumbles of agreement from most of the others.

Less than an hour later, it was done. One by one, they renewed their oaths of allegiance to the Emperor and then slipped out onto the quarterdeck of the
Shark
. Boats were readied to take the captains back to their ships. Their plans were laid.

But the best-laid plans may still go awry.

Just as the boats were about to be lowered, lights suddenly blazed up from below. Hoarse cries could be heard along with the sudden thud of drums. A swarm of boats had crept up unseen around the ship, and Red Tops were climbing up the side netting. There were hundreds of them, probably all the Red Tops remaining in the fleet.

"We are betrayed!" wailed Groth.

A huge voice bellowed from below, "Arrest them all in the name of His Majesty Nebbeggebben. They are all to be questioned by the priests."

"Damn," said Captain Temerar, "that's Beshezz."

"Well," said Heuze, "that answers the question about his loyalties, all right."

The captains stood irresolute, frozen in horror.

Aeswiren broke the spell with a roar: "To hell with this. I'm not going to slaughter like a fool calf." His sword flashed in the torch light.

"Come on, the rest of you," he yelled at them. "They're just a lot of Red Tops. We can beat them. Fight!"

The captains hesitated, so intimidated by the rule of the priests all their lives that even now they hardly dared resist.

A Red Top started climbing over the side. Aeswiren sped across and punched the fellow in the face. With a startled whoop, he went backward down to the water below.

"Come on!" bellowed Aeswiren.

And the spell was broken. The captains charged forward, drawing swords, picking up whatever lay to hand for weapons. If they were taken alive, the priests would hammer their fingers flat and then tear their hearts out of their chests while they screamed their last. Better to die fighting.

Even Filek Biswas took up an oar and swung it two-handed to knock Red Tops back into the sea.

"That's it, Biswas," roared the admiral, who was swinging his sword with a will.

The ordinary seamen of the
Shark
had come on deck at the sounds of the attack. At first they had stood still, numbed by what they were seeing, fearing to do anything lest it lead them to the altars of the Great God. They observed that there were a lot of captains onboard. The quarterdeck was jammed with men in blue and red coats. They looked to them for leadership as the Red Tops scrambled over the gunwale.

Then the figure clad as the Emperor on all the coins jumped forward and started attacking the Red Tops, and the men went crazy.

There was nothing in the world they hated more than the Red Tops. They met the young priests with swords, knives, belaying pins, mattocks, and hammers.

It was a thumping, scratching, bloody fight. The young Red Tops had spent much of the last two years in a state of humiliated rage. The power of the priests had been smashed by Admiral Heuze. The Gold Tops had been almost annihilated, and the number of Red Tops had been cut down by three quarters, with the majority castrated and sold into slavery.