March to the Sea - Empire of Man Book II

"What, by all the gods, is this?" Starg asked, rubbing a horn furiously.

"Well," the maybe-not-basik, Pahner, said, "I'm afraid we weren't quite sure who held the mines, so we took the liberty of securing your guards until we were sure. They're unharmed," the not-basik added hastily.

"So you just snuck in and took over?" the mine manager demanded, wondering whether he was angrier at the newcomers or at the guards who were supposed to have prevented such things from happening.

"It's ... something of a specialty of ours," the not-basik said with another of those strange grimaces.

"They did it to us once," Rastar confirmed with a weird move of both shoulder sets.

"So now what?" Starg asked. "You can't do any good here; the Boman just avoid us."

"We may leave a few groups of our soldiers with you," Rus From replied. "Some of our Diasprans haven't taken as well to conditions on the march as they thought they might. That doesn't make them poor soldiers, though, and they can be helpful training and supporting your miners. The rest of us are going to K'Vaern's Cove."

"You'll never make it," the mine manager warned. "You might have made it on a straight shot from the south, but it's different between here and the Cove."

"Yes, it is," the not-basik agreed with one of those weird grimaces. Suddenly, he looked much less like a basik than an atul. A hungry atul. "There's a road."

"We'll be moving very fast," Rastar added. "You might have noticed that we have a large number of turom and civan along with the pagee. The humans have shown us that an infantry force can move much faster than we ever believed possible if the spear-carriers take occasional rests by holding onto the packs of the turom and civan. Also, many of them, and all our wounded, ride on the pagee. I wouldn't have believed it before they proved it, but we can travel nearly as fast as civan cavalry."

"We should get through without problems as long as we can avoid their main force," the "human" noted. "You said that they're in and around Sindi. I've seen that on a map, and it's well out of the way of the direct route to K'Vaern's Cove. How sure are you of their location, and where do you get your information?"

"Some woodsmen still move among the Boman," Starg replied. "Charcoal burners and the like who simply give them whatever they want and survive as best they can. We help them out with whatever we can spare, and in return they keep us fairly well informed on where the barbs are and what they're up to. Also, Sindi is the largest and richest city they've conquered. They aren't done looting it even yet."

The humans shared a look with the Northern prince, but Rastar seemed to agree.

"They would know, Armand," the Northerner said. "The woods are filled with half-wild workers, and I doubt that they'd care much for the Boman. Their lives are never easy, but they must be truly impossible in the midst of this invasion."

"Then we need to factor them into our next move," said the not-basik, Pahner. "Intelligence cuts two ways."

"What?" Starg asked. "They're not particularly smart-"

"He means that they could talk to the Boman as well as to you," Rastar translated. "It's a human term meaning all that you know about your enemy."

"We don't want our axis of advance communicated to the Boman," Pahner added.

"I doubt that they'll be talking to the Boman," Rastar demurred. "They're insular even under normal conditions, and I'm sure they're staying as far away from the invaders as they can."

"That's truth," Starg said. "We've traded tools and weapons to them for food and other supplies. Otherwise, they'd have nothing to do with us, either."

"Tools," Pahner said. "That we're not in need of. But how much refined iron do you have on-site?"

"Why?" Starg asked suspiciously.

"Because we're taking it all with us to K'Vaern," Pahner said, looking out over the building Diaspran camp. "K'Vaern's Cove will need it if they're going to survive, and we need them happy with us. It's why we came this way, really."

"Oh, you are, are you?" Starg said angrily. "Just how are you going to pay for it? It's not like you even brought all that was already owed!"

The not-basik's head turned towards Starg like a machine. The human was scarcely half the miner's size, and Starg had been in more fights as a youngster than his old bones cared to remember. But at that moment, he was as sure as the gods had made him that he did not want to test the human commander.

"Worry not," Rus From said calmly. "I'll guarantee payment for the material from the temple."

"Oh," Starg said, his hostility disappearing abruptly. "In that case, I suppose it will be all right. And in answer to your question, there are several tons waiting to go. We've been smelting most of the time."

"Pig iron, or wrought?" Rastar asked.

"Pig," the miner said with a shrug. "I've got a puddling forge, but I don't have the charcoal to make it worthwhile to run it."

"We can make steel from this?" Pahner asked. "That's important."

"You can," Starg said shortly. "At least they can in K'Vaern's Cove ... if you get it there."

"Great," Pahner said, nodding as he slipped a slice of bisti root into his mouth. "Give him a chit or whatever, Rus, and let's get loading. I want to be able to pull right out in the morning."

Dergal Starg stood watching the receding column in the morning light. The humans and half the civan cavalry had left earlier to sweep the path of the caravan, and about a third of the "pikemen" were holding onto straps dangling from the pack turom and civan. The rest were spread out to either side and in front, screening the caravan as it headed for the broad, stone road to K'Vaern's Cove.

The head of the miner guard force walked up to Starg as he stood by the rough rock wall guarding the entrance to the mine.

"I'm sorry about yesterday, Dergal. We just weren't vigilant enough. It won't happen again."

"Hmmm?" the manager said, then shook himself. "Oh, don't worry about that, T'an-it's the least of our worries. I just got scammed by a human who spent half his time talking about pits, or pocks, or something. He also taught me an interesting game of chance, and I now owe him about four days' output. In addition to that, we've just sent all the metal we've processed since the invasion into the very midst of the Boman solely on a promise of payment from a priest who, I have since discovered, left home under ... less than auspicious circumstances. And we can only collect it if we manage to get word back to Diaspra that they owe it to us. And if a caravan makes it back through to us, of course."

"Oh," said T'an. Then, "This isn't good, is it?"

"By the gods, I don't know," Starg said, with a grunt of humor. "But I think it's grand."

"Is Gratar going to pay?" Pahner asked. "We would've gone ahead and loaded the iron whether he would or not, but will he?"

"Yes," From said. "He will, and he'll know that I knew that he would. I regard it as it is- What's that phrase you humans use? 'A parting shot'?"

"And a nice one, despite Poertena's best efforts," the Marine agreed.

"Yes, it is," the priest said with a note of obvious satisfaction as he visualized the priest-king's reaction to the bill Dergal Starg was about to present to him. "But what matters is that we have the iron, which should be well-received in K'Vaern's Cove. Now all we have to do is get through with it."

"Oh, we'll get through," Pahner said. "Even if I've got to break out the armor, we'll get through. It's after we get through that it gets interesting."