On the Oceans of Eternity Read online

  Marian Alston-Kurlelo clasped her hands behind her back and rose slightly on the balls of her feet. Southampton Base was nearly as old as Westhaven; this was near where the Eagle had landed on that first trip to Alba, better than ten years ago now. Her head turned right, northward, remembering that day. That had been early spring, cold and windy like this, but sunny rather than overcast. She'd been heading into the beginnings of a war then, too, only she hadn't known it. Her eyes sought a tall fair head among the throngs along the brick-paved waterside; Swindapa was holding a checklist, issuing curt orders to several chiefs. One of them bridled, a backwoodsman from the northeast by the look of his pyrographed leather kilt and forked beard. A comrade grabbed his arm, whispered urgently, led him aside. The rest of them nodded and scattered to obey.

  Marian allowed herself a quirk of the lips, remembering how the chief of the Irauna hadn't even realized she was a woman, back when the Eagle made its first trip up the Southampton Water. She remembered the chaos of the Irauna camp she'd found, as well. The noisy sprawl of pushing and shoving around the docks here was order itself compared to that, although it was loud enough to scare flocks of wildfowl from the marshes across the harbor, where Gosport would have been in the other history. Even the Sun People could learn…

  She watched one war band filing up a gangplank in excellent order, the tough wood bending a little under their feet, the sideropes moving under their hands and prompting uneasy glances downward-few of that breed were seamen yet. They were in no uniform, but most of them wore trousers, jacket, and boots of Islander inspiration. The webbing harness, packs, and bayonets were Nantucket-made, and so were the Werder rifles slung reverently over their shoulders-the bandoliers were going to stay empty until they arrived at their destination, of course. Most of them had long tomahawks thrust through the straps of their knapsacks, a few still bronze-headed. Their leader might almost have been an Islander himself, though, a young man with cropped hair, clipped mustache, shaven chin, polished boots, a new Python revolver at his waist. And a list in his hand, from which he was obviously reading…

  Hmmm. On the other hand, not all progress is unambiguously positive. Not every Sun People warrior who enlisted in Guard or Marines took citizenship and stayed in the Republic after his hitch was up. Those who came back to Alba and their tribes brought their knowledge with them; many of them were the sons of chiefs, and all of them became influential men, with the skills and prestige and gold they'd earned.

  Nothing like getting the hell beaten out of you to provide an incentive for learning, she thought uneasily. The Fiernan Bohulugi were genuine allies; the Sun People were that in theory, and a resentful protectorate in fact.

  Teaching a barbarian can make him civilized… or just a more dangerous savage. You did what you had to do in the short run, but the long-term worries were killers.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  September, 10 A.E.-Babylon, Kingdom of Kar-Duniash

  September, 10 A.E.-O'Rourke's Ford, east of Troy

  September, 10 A.E.-Babylon, Kingdom of Kar-Duniash

  September, 10 A.E.-O'Rourke's Ford, east of Troy

  September, 10 A.E.-Babylon, Kingdom of Kar-Duniash

  September, 10 A.E.-Walkeropolis, Kingdom of Great Achaea

  September, 10 A.E.-Babylon, Kingdom of Kar-Duniash

  Lord King, your armies are victorious!" the officer the New Troops said, rising from his prostration and snapping off a salute he'd learned from his Nantucketer instructors.

  Kashtiliash leaned back in the chair of state, elbow on the arm of the chair and jaw resting on thumb and forefinger. The officer was dressed in something similar to the Nantucketer uniform as well, boots and breeches and loose jacket with many pockets, with webbing harness of coarse double-ply canvas. He'd added an ostrich plume to the front of the cloth-covered steel helmet, though; Kashtiliash decided to check to see that nobody was wearing them thus in the field. It had been hard for him to grasp that firearms made it essential for soldiers to skulk like hunters or bandits. It would not do for them to acquire bad habits that would turn lethal when they met enemies armed likewise.

  "You drove the Aramaeans before you?" Kashtiliash asked skeptically. That wasn't particularly difficult.

  Even without firearms, it was seldom a problem to beat the Aramaeans… if they would stand and fight, which they almost never did unless they vastly outnumbered the force sent against them. Aiming a blow at the sand thieves was like driving a chariot wheel through a mud puddle; the contents spattered and flew apart in tiny globules, then ran together again and all was unchanged. So the nomads were, striking at defenseless peasant hamlets or the donkey-caravans of merchants, then fading back into the endless wastes to the west. Sometimes a King could frighten them into meekness by occupying water holes, or going after their women and sheep, but even that was difficult. Every year they grew bolder and more numerous. Villages had been abandoned in the areas most subject to their raids, and canals left to silt. Yet if the edge of cultivation moved back, then the herdsmen took those fields over and districts further east became exposed to raids.

  The chronicles said the Amorites had come likewise from the western deserts long ago, and ended by ruling all the Land- Hammurabi had been of that blood. His own ancestors had been herdsmen from the other quarter, in the mountains to the eastward. The Aramaeans were only a minor nuisance so far, but a great sandstorm began with a single gust of wind.

  Thus had he sent a unit of his elite, the New Troops armed and trained by the Nantukhtar, against them.

  "No, King of the Universe! We did not merely chase them, we slaughtered them. We killed over a thousand; I have the ears in sacks, O Viceregent of Marduk. A thousand strong warriors alone; and we took over three thousand prisoners, mostly women and children, and ten thousand sheep and goats, hundreds of donkeys. The Subartu-tribe of Bit-Yakin will never again trouble the Land, for it has ceased to be-its flocks and its herds, its tents and its clans and its nasika-sheiks."

  "How?" Kashtiliash asked. "I wouldn't have thought they would stay to face our new fire-weapons."

  "It was the camels, King of the Four Quarters of the Universe. The beasts are possessed of devils, but they can travel like devils. We went three days from water-

  "Here, show me," Kashtiliash said eagerly. There were times when he felt trapped here in the palace, but the King could not take the field for a minor punitive expedition, as a prince of the House of Succession might.

  The small audience room had changed somewhat since the Nantukhtar came. The throne was the same, but one wall had been stripped of tapestries and murals and whitewashed. On it was drawn a map of the Land, as the Gods might see it. The officer took up an olive-wood pointer.

  "We swung out into the deep desert-as Lord Kenn'et of the Nantukhtar did against the Assyrians, when he pursued them north last year. I bethought myself of that, and took the two hundred men trained to ride the demon-beasts. While the others came in on foot from the east, and the Aramaeans retreated before them. Even the nomads do not go so far into the sands. They were taken wholly by surprise, between the hammer and the anvil-and we could pursue their bands faster than they scattered."

  Kashtiliash nodded thoughtfully. The camels came from the desert peninsula to the southwest of the Land Between the Rivers, brought north by Nantukhtar ships. The southernmost nomads had begun to use them, these last few generations, but they knew little of saddling and harnessing them as yet, and the northerly Aramaean tribes didn't use them at all, traveling on foot with their possessions on donkey-back. A donkey had to be watered every day, and could carry barely more than a man, and no more quickly. A camel could travel up to a week without water, eat anything that grew, carry three times the weight of a grown man, and cover many times the ground men or horses could. Kat'ryn had told him of how that would change this part of the world, in the centuries to come. In her histories, it had benefited mostly the sand-thieves themselves, the ones who came after the Aramaeans-the Arabs, they were called, stil
l hundreds upon hundreds of miles to the south, in this age.

  That shall not be so, here, he thought.

  He had grasped whence the Nantukhtar really came, their island adrift on the oceans of eternity. Few others in this age could, he thought, even shrewd men, learned men. The Nantukhtar hadn't made any particular secret of it, but most dismissed the thought with a shudder as merely more of the eldritch air of magic that surrounded the strangers.

  But I am lucky in that my mind is supple. Perhaps because I am young yet. It is a mighty thing, a fate laid on us all by the great Gods, whether for good or ill.

  Aloud: "You have done well, and I say unto you well done; the King's heart is pleased with you, Awil-Sin. Nor shall you and your men be without reward."

  Awil-Sin prostrated himself again, then bowed backward out of the audience chamber past the motionless Royal Guards-standing to attention was another art which the Nantukhtar had brought. Kashtiliash glanced aside at Kidin-Ninurta, formerly his father's chief superintendent of matters dealing with Dilmun and Meluhha, now in charge of dealings with the Nantukhtar. And in their pay, of course, but his ultimate loyalty was to the kingdom. Beside him sal Bahdi-Lim, the wakil ol" the karum, the king's overseer of trade.

  "You hear?" he said.

  "I hear, O King who is without rival. Shall the prisoners be sold?"

  "Mmmm, no," Kashtiliash said. For one thing, his allies would object, starting with his wife. "We shall settle them on the Elamite frontier-on the new lands watered by the canal cut by the steam-dredges. Well mixed with prisoners from the Assyrian war and with our own people. I have some men it is in my mind to favor with kudurru-grants; Awil-Sin, for one."

  The two officials nodded. Land, even land next to an irrigation canal, was valueless without tenant-farmers to work it.

  Kidin-Ninurta went on thoughtfully. "These camels could be of much use to us."

  "Indeed. Bahdi-Lim, see that we acquire more-as many as the southern tribes will sell; inquire among the merchants who deal in Dilmun and send agents there. See that more men are trained in their handling, and see that a breeding program is put in hand." The King owned vast estates, many of them dedicated to the breeding of horses for the royal chariot corps; camels couldn't be impossibly different.

  Kidin-Ninurta bowed over folded hands; he was a plump man in his middle years, beard shining with the oil of prosperity. "And when there are enough, our merchants will be greatly aided, thus bringing more wealth to the Throne. With strings of camels rather than donkeys, they could cross the wastes bearing greater loads at lower costs. Yet another thing from which we may draw wealth!"

  "Yes… speak your thoughts, both of you."

  The two bureaucrats were bubbling over with schemes to take the New Learning and make the Land rich, not to mention themselves. Kashtiliash didn't mind that; if you used oxen to tread out grain, they took an occasional mouthful. If he was to build a new standing army equipped with fire-weapons, with rifles and cannon, he would need much wealth. Even more, if he was to lift his kingdom to equality with the Nantukhtar. That would be a work of generations, though.

  "It is good, and more than good," he said at last. "You will prepare a list of these projects, from the least difficult to the most, with the costs and difficulties of each. This you will bring before me, and soon. You have the King's leave to go."

  His next audience would be less pleasant. He looked at his watch, also a gift from his queen's people. The flying ship would be here late in the day. Perhaps tomorrow morning…

  "I wish we were on higher ground," O'Rourke murmured, as the first of the enemy came into sight far down the road. They're not wasting time; twenty-four hours after I got here. "Or that things were more open here."

  "If we were on higher ground, we wouldn't have water," Barnes replied.

  The alarm had caught her washing off under the pump, and she'd come running with towel in hand; Hantilis kept sliding his eyes toward her and then away until an orderly came up with her uniform. Some corner of O'Rourke's mind not preoccupied with matters professional smiled amusement. Functional needs and Fiernan influence had more or less killed the nudity taboo in the Republic, most particularly in the military, but it always caused at least some friction when they ran into cultures that did have that sort of prohibition. He suspected that Hantilis’s subconscious hadn't been registering Barnes and the others as really female in his brief exposure to the Nantucketer military, and was disconcerted when the visual evidence was unmistakable.

  "Bugler, sound stand to," Barnes said, buttoning her tunic and swinging on the Sam Browne harness that held pistol, sword, and belt pouches.

  The clear sweet notes of the bugle sounded; few of the garrison had far to travel. Most of them had already taken up the rifles that had rested in neat tripods overnight and dashed to their posts on the walls. Others trotted out of the sunken bunker that held the explosives, each pair carrying an ammunition box by the rope handles on each end. They plumped the boxes down at intervals along the fighting platform, then used their bayonets to pry open the lids with a screech of nails.

  Each lid had a label burned into its surface: Werder.40 1000 rounds. Within the ammunition lay in ten-round packets. The Marines on the fighting platform around the wall buckled back the covers of the bandoliers that hung from their webbing belts, revealing the neat brass rows of shells in the loops within. Barnes looked over at him, and he nodded with a slight jerk of his chin.

  "Company-" she called, in a high carrying voice.

  "Platoon-" It echoed through the subordinate commanders. "Squad-

  "Fix-"

  "Fix-" "Bayonets!"

  There was a long slithering rasp and rattle and click as the twenty-inch blades came free and locked to the ring-and-bar fasteners under the muzzles of the rifles. One fumbled and dropped the weapon halfway through the procedure, and caught a hissed "Sharpen up, you sloppy excuse for a Marine!" from his corporal.

  "Load!"

  The same relay, and another series of clicks as the grooved breech-blocks were pushed down, a round was shoved into the breech, and the arming-piece in its curved slot at the right side of the weapon was thumbed back to full cock. A murmur, as the noncoms repeated: "Eyes front. Set your sights at two hundred yards. Wait for the command."

  O'Rourke glanced around. Ready for the dance, he thought. Rifles to the walls, the Gatling between the two overturned wagons that made up the gate-that faced roughly southwest, covering the largest area of open ground. Far too many stone walls, olive groves, and shallow ravines round about otherwise, and the steep hills that pinched the valley were far too close, but that was God's lookout. Speaking of which:

  "Praise be the Lord God who trains my fingers to the bow and makes my hand strong to war-"

  Chaplain Smith was at it again, not a bad text. Even if the man was an Irauna convert and therefore a bit of a fanatic, with a taste for the bloodier Psalms.

  The enemy were coming up the road and through the fields to either side; far too many of them for comfort. O'Rourke licked sweat off his lips and took a thoughtful swig from his canteen before picking up the binoculars he'd laid on a barley sack.

  Couple of thousand, at least, he thought. Five thousand if we're unlucky. Two, three days travel from the coast-they might be able to keep them supplied, at that. But I don't think they've got the patience for a siege of the camp.

  They obviously weren't Walker's regulars; just irregular clots of footmen following chiefs in chariots. A few mounted scouts came galloping closer; and the glitter off the weapons of the host was as much steel as bronze. Presumably some of them would have learned a bit about modern warfare at Troy…

  The noise started again, like a giant drum, or the chuffing of a monstrous steam engine. This time he could see what it was, thousands of them beating the flats of their weapons on their shields in ragged unison. The sound boomed back from the rocky slopes on either hand as well…

  "Oh, for a couple of rifled cannon," Barnes said.

&n
bsp; "Or a heavy mortar, or some rocket launchers," O'Rourke agreed.

  That was a distance problem, though. Ur Base's armory down at the top of the Persian Gulf could make small-arms ammunition and some replacement parts for rifles. Every single heavy weapon and every round for them had to come by ship from Nantucket or Alba, down the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope, up across the Indian Ocean, up the Gulf, unload at Ur Base, go up the Euphrates by steamboat and barge, then hundreds of miles more to the Anatolian plateau and westward to here by wagon and camel and pack mule.

  Great Achaea, now… their factories weren't as many or as good, but being ten thousand miles closer covered a multitude of sins. Better to have a second-rate weapon that was here, rather than a first-rate one that hadn't arrived yet because the ship bringing it was becalmed in the doldrums.

  The sound died out and the enemy began to spread; the nobles were getting out of their chariots, too. Too bad. I wish they were more conservative about that. Most of the men squatted or sat, leaning on spears or rifles. Horns blared, long upright bronze trumpets with the mouths of wild beasts, grouped around a knot of men in bright gear: gilded bronze armor, helmets topped with boars and wolves and ravens, chain mail and steel swords, guns. The knot eddied, then moved southward and up the slopes of a fairly steep hill, threading their way through terraced vineyards to the clear rocky summit. O'Rourke moved his binoculars and found himself staring at the doll-tiny figure of a man in a raven-crested helmet with long gray mustaches putting an even longer brass spyglass to his eye and looking right back at the Nantucketer. Great minds thought alike…

  "Hmmm… I think the laddie with the bandaged arm beside him is the gentleman with the spear I had a bit of a brush with yesterday," O'Rourke said lightly.

  The chief with the spyglass took it down from his eye and waved. Spears repeated the gesture down the hillslope, and a band of warriors five hundred strong rose and moved forward. They weren't moving in ranks, but there was an unpleasant steadiness to the way they came forward, flowing into dead ground, the shelter of groves or walls, up a long gully that sheltered everything but the tips of their spears.