March Upcountry

"Okay." Roger levered himself up with help from the valet. "Make sure of it."

The prince stumbled across the floor to the open doorway and stopped at the view that greeted him. The interior of the citadel was a scene from some demented vision of Hell.

The eastern bastion, Second Platoon's redoubt, was a blackened ruin. The curtain wall on that side was still covered in Mardukan dead, and the doors and spear slits were blasted, blackened, and broken.

The gatehouse was nothing but rubble, and half-fused, still-smoking rubble, at that. And the bailey was covered in Mardukan dead, piled five and six deep... where the piles weren't even deeper. Since the gate had been the only drain for the torrential Mardukan rains, the courtyard had started to fill with water. The line of natives who were working to clear the area already waded ankle deep in the noisome mess as they bent over the dead, and it was getting deeper.

Roger peered at the natives picking up bodies and bits of bodies in the gruesome, deepening soup.

"Are those who I think they are?"

"Kranolta," Kostas confirmed.

"They have weapons," Roger pointed out in a croak. He took another sip of water and shook his head. "What happened?" he asked for the third time.

"We won," the valet repeated. "Sort of. Forces from the other city-states showed up right at the end. They hit the Kranolta from the rear, and drove them back over the wall, where they finally took the eastern bastion. By then, Captain Pahner had evacuated it anyway, and it was the only cover they could find. Between the pressure of the new forces and having them pi

"But quite a few of them had withdrawn to their encampment before the city-state forces arrived. Only a handful of their original army, but enough that they could still have caused lots of problems, so Pahner arranged a cease-fire. The Kranolta that are left don't have any interest in facing Marines or the 'New Voitan' forces, but they'll fight if forced to. So the Captain and our new... allies agreed to let them keep their weapons and bury their dead."

"What a disaster," Roger whispered, looking over his shoulder back into the keep.

"It could have been worse, Sir."

"How?" Roger demanded bitterly.

"Well," the valet said as the rain began again, "we could have lost."

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

"If you hadn't come, we would have lost."

Roger took a sip of wine. The vintage was excellent, but then, all of the tent's appointments were excellent, from the finely tooled leather of its walls, to its hammered brass tables. The cushions on the floor were covered in a cloth the humans had never seen before, silky and utterly unlike the more common rough and wool-like material found in Q'Nkok. Obviously, T'Kal Vlan traveled in style.

"Perhaps so." The last ruler of T'an K'tass picked up a candied slice of kate fruit and nibbled it. "Yet even so, you would have destroyed the Kranolta. That's surely worth something even in the eyes of gods of the most distant land!"

Captain Pahner shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but it isn't. We come from an empire so vast that the Kranolta and all the valley of the Hurtan are an u

"Ah!" Roger exclaimed. "Not that! Not Mother angry! God forbid!"

"A formidable woman, eh?" T'Kal Vlan grunted a laugh.

"Rather," Roger told him with a shrug. "He has a point, though. I'm sure that if I died, Mother would visit me beyond the grave to chastise me for it."

"So, you see," Pahner continued, "I'm afraid I have to count this one as a straight loss."

"Not really, Captain," the prince said, swirling his wine gently. "We've cleared the way. One way or another, we had to get to the other side of this range of hills, and none of the choices were particularly good. There's no reason to second-guess this one. If we'd gone south, we would've been walking through a war, and we would undoubtedly have second-guessed ourselves then and said 'I bet those Kranolta pussies wouldn't have been this much trouble.'"

"Well, I for one thank you for clearing out most of those 'Kranolta pussies,' " T'Leen Targ said, with his own grunt of laughter. "Already, the ironworkers we brought with us are building the furnaces. We have gathered all the surviving masters of the art and their apprentices. Soon the lifeblood of Voitan will flow once more."

"Aye," T'Kal Vlan agreed. "And the sooner the better. My own treasury is flowing away like blood."

"You need to capitalize," O'Casey said. The chief of staff had been quietly sipping her wine and listening to the warriors' testosterone grunting with amusement. This, however, was her specialty.

"Agreed," Vlan said. "But the family has already liquidated most of its holdings to fund the expedition. Short of borrowing, at extortionate rates, I'm not sure how to raise more capital."

"Sell shares," O'Casey suggested. "Offer a partial ownership of the mines. Each share has a vote on management, and each gains equity and shares in the profits, if any. It would be a long-term investment, but not a particularly risky one if you're sufficiently capitalized. "

"I didn't understand all the words you just used," Vlan said, cocking his head. "What is this 'equity'?"

"Oh, my." O'Casey gri

"Don't worry," Pahner told her with a shrug. "We're not going anywhere for a while."

Roger sat up in his tent, damp with sweat and panting and looked around him. All clear. Tent walls faintly billowing in the wind that had come up. Camp gear. Eyes.

"You should be resting, Your Highness," said Cord faintly.

"So should you, old snake," Roger said. "You don't heal as fast as we do." He sat up on the camp cot and took a deep breath. "It just, you know, comes back."

"Yes, it does," the Mardukan agreed.

"I wonder how..." The prince stopped and shook his head.

"How?" the shaman queried, lifting himself up with a grimace.

"You should be flat on your back, Cord," Roger said with another headshake.

"I grow weary of lying about like a worm," the Mardukan countered. "How, what?"

"Not one to be distracted, are you?" Roger smiled. "I was wondering how the Marines handle it. How they handle the fear and the death. Not just ours, God knows I got enough Marines killed here. But the Kranolta. We've ended them as a tribe, Cord. Piled them up against the wall as if they were a ramp. They... don't seem affected by that."

"Then you have not eyes, Young Prince," the shaman countered with a grunt. "Look at young Julian. Your people, too, have the laughing warrior who hides his pain with humor, as did our Denat, he who I lost to the atul. Always he faced danger with laughter, but it was a shield to the soul. I'm sure that he jested with the very atul as it ate him. Or young Despreaux. So young, so dangerous. I am told that she is beautiful for a human. I don't see it myself; she lacks... many things. Horns for one. And her shield is that face like a stone. She holds her pain in so hard it has turned her to a stone, I think."

Roger tilted his head to the side and played with a stray lock of hair. "What about... Pahner? Kosutic?"

"Ah," Cord grunted. "For one, you notice that though they are capable warriors, they control from afar. But mostly they have learned the tricks. The first trick is to know that you are not alone. While I was in the cavern still, Pahner came to visit, to see the wounded, and we talked. He is a font of wisdom is your captain. We talked of many things but mostly we talked of... song. Of poetry."