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-VI-
"You have done well. My guild will be pleased," the demon-jester's voice piped in Sir George's ear.
The small alien sat in his air car, hovering no more than six feet above the ground so that Sir George could look almost straight across at him through the open vehicle window as the baron sat in Satan's saddle. The light, expressionless voice seemed even more grotesque than usual as Sir George turned his head away to gaze out over the heaped and mounded bodies of the slain. Never in all his days, not even at Dupplin or at Halidon Hill, had he seen such slaughter. Not even the devastating defeat of the Thoolaas had littered the field with so many corpses, and human or not, the groans and whimpering moans of the wounded and dying sounded much the same. The aftermath of battle, the smells and sights and—especially—the sounds, was what had always truly haunted the baron, and as the aftermath of this battle washed over him, a sudden wave of fury filled him.
His armor was splashed and spattered with blood. His sword had been gummy with more of the same and clotted with hide and hair before he cleaned it, and his body ached in every muscle and sinew. A final, despairing charge of warriors who had known they were defeated, whose only remaining purpose in life had been to reach and kill the author of the destruction of their tribes, had very nearly succeeded. The howling tide of ax-wielding barbarians had slammed into his personal bodyguard, and if they hadn't—quite—managed to kill Sir George, they had hacked down his squire. Thomas Snellgrave would never be knighted now, the baron thought grimly. The young man had flung himself between three shrieking Laahstaar warriors and his liege while Sir George was fully engaged against two others, and not even the Physician could restore life to someone whose head had been entirely severed and whose body had been hewn limb from limb by the vengeful axes of warriors who had known they were doomed.
Nor had young Snellgrave been the only human fatality. Seven more of Sir George's men were "dead," and from the reports he'd received, it seemed likely that at least two of them would remain that way despite even the Physician's healing magic. Three lives might not weigh for much against the thousands upon thousands of other lives which had been taken away this bloody day, but in an odd sort of way, it was the very smallness of the number which made it hit so hard. It was one a human mind could envision and feel, not a vastness impossible to truly comprehend. And unlike the anonymous natives whose bodies covered the plain as far as the baron could see, the men those lives had belonged to had been part of his own life. They had been his men, faces he'd known, individuals—people—for whom he had been responsible. They'd gone into battle under his orders, and they had died there, and one of them left behind a wife and three children.
The filth and suffering, the horror and the loss, weighed down upon the baron. A hard man, Sir George Wincaster, and a tough one. A soldier who'd seen massacre and casual cruelty enough before this day even when both sides had been human, and one who was no more immune to the fierce pride of victory against overwhelming numbers than any other man. Oh, yes, he was all of those things. But he was also the man who had wrought the savagery which had covered this purple-colored grass on this alien world with agony and blood. His was the mind which had created the alliance which had made it all possible, and his was the voice which had launched his men and their allies into the vortex. He knew that, and the guilt for what stretched as far as he could see weighed down upon him like the very millstones of God.
And now the demon-jester hovered beside him, floating like some evil sorcerer of legend above the Hell-spawned landscape, untouched and clean despite the unspeakable carnage. Congratulating him. Telling him how well he'd served in that voice which was never touched by emotion. No doubt that emotionlessness was largely the product of whatever translated the demon-jester's language into English, but not all of it was. Sir George had spent too much time with the demon-jester, heard too many of his dismissals of his "inferiors' " right to be considered even remotely his equal, to doubt that for a moment. His "Commander's" satisfaction was genuine, however little feeling there might be in his voice, and that satisfaction was unshadowed by even a trace of the horror which haunted Sir George. The demon-jester and his precious guild were responsible for every drop of blood, every wound, every corpse... and the alien didn't even care.
Did the demon-jester ever so much as think about it? Did it even occur to him that the beings, human and otherwise, whom he had so casually condemned to death had been living, thinking creatures? It was impossible to tell, but Sir George very much doubted that it did. Whatever else the bodies tumbled about the field of battle might have been, they had never been people to the demon-jester. They'd been mere obstacles, "primitives" to be compelled to submit to his will or destroyed, whichever was required, by the equally primitive Englishmen he'd stolen from their homes. And if there had been any reason to feel guilt or remorse—there wasn't, of course, but if there had been—then that guilt would have belonged to Sir George and his men, not to the demon-jester. If, of course, such primitives as they could possibly have possessed the sensitivity to feel such things.
The baron clenched his teeth, fighting down the tidal bore of his hate as he gazed at the true author of the atrocity he had just wrought. It took every ounce of the iron self-control learned in twenty years of warfare and political infighting, but somehow he kept that sick tide of loathing leashed. Rage hammered the backs of his teeth, yet he refused to let it out. Instead, he bit off the invective his soul cried out to hurl into the demon-jester's emotionless, double-mouthed face. He chewed the iron-tasting words and swallowed their jagged shards, and made himself nod to the creature upon whom the lives of every one of his men and their families depended.
"Indeed, Commander," he said. "The men fought well, and our allies showed better discipline than I'd truly expected."
"So I observed," the demon-jester replied. "I do not believe that the Laahstaar and Mouthai will raise any further objections to my guild's terms."
No, the baron thought harshly, they won't. There aren't enough of them left.
"It will, of course, be necessary to make certain of that," the demon-jester continued, oblivious to the human's reaction. "And as you have proven surprisingly adroit at negotiating with and understanding these crude and primitive creatures, I may require your assistance in framing the precise terms of our trade agreements."
"As you command," Sir George replied. The thought of serving the demon-jester's interests further galled his soul, but even as it did, he recognized the alien's words as proof of the increased value the creature assigned to him.
The baron looked away from the air car once more, gazing out over the field where the demon-jester's mechanical minions hovered, still collecting the wounded... and at least some of the dead. He'd tried to convince the demon-jester to make the Physician's services available to their allies' wounded, as well, but his "Commander" had insisted that there would not be sufficient return upon the investment to make it profitable for the guild to extend such services to the natives. The possibility that he might have had any moral responsibility to them hadn't even crossed his mind, yet at least Sir George had gotten him to agree to allow the natives access to the water-carriers and to collect his allies' wounded and transport them to their own villages for whatever treatment their healers could provide. The human was only too well aware of how little that actually amounted to compared to what the demon-jester might have done for them, but they weren't. As far as they were concerned, simply having their wounded transported home was a miracle, and he felt an all too familiar sense of flawed achievement. What he'd accomplished fell far short of anything he would have considered just, yet little as it was, it was still better than they would have had without him. He knew that, and yet a part of him deeply resented the way in which it had actually enhanced the natives' sense of gratitude to the demon-jester who considered them worth less than as many dumb beasts.