The Horse Barbarians

The jungle now occupied the city. A circular mound, covered with plants and tough growth, was the only trace of the once impregnable perimeter walL As they came low, they could see thornlike creepers bursting through the windows of the buildings. Animals moved slowly through the streets that had once been crowded with people, while a clawhawk perched on the tower of the central warehouse, the masonry crumbling under its weight.

As they flew on, they could see that the smoke was coming from the crushed ruin of their spaceship. It appeared to have been caught on the ground at the spaceport and was held down by a now blackened net of giant vines.

There were no signs of activity anywhere in the ruined city. Just the beasts and plants of deathworld, now strangely quiet and sluggish with their enemy gone, the motivations of hatred that had enraged them for so long now vanished. They stirred and reared when the ship passed over, quickened to life again as the raw emotions of the surviving Pyrrans impressed upon them..

“They can’t all be dead,” Teca said in a choked voice. “Keep looking.”

“I am quartering the entire area,” Meta told him.

Kerk found the destruction almost impossible to look at, and when he spoke, his voice was low, as though he were talking only to himself.

“We knew that it had to end like this, sometime. We faced that and tried to make a new start on a new planet. But, knowing something will happen and seeing it before your eyes, those are two different things. We ate there, in that… ruin, slept in that one. Our friends and comrades were here, our entire life. And now it is gone.”

“Go down!” Clon said, thinking nothing, feeling hatred. “Attack. We can still fight.”

“There is nothing left to fight for,” Teca told him, speaking with an immense weariness. “As Kenk said, it is gone.”

A hull pickup detected the sound of gunfire, and they rocketed toward it with momentary hope. But it was just an automatic gun still actuating itself in a repeating pattern. Soon it would be out of am’munition and would be still like the rest of the ruined city.

The radio light had been blinking for some time before someone noticed it. The call was on the wavelength of Rhes’s headquarters, not the one the city had used. Kerk reached oven slowly and switched the set to receive.

“Naxa here, can you hear me? Come in, Pugnacious.”

“Kerk here. We are over the city. We are… too late. Can you give me a report?”

“Too late by days,” Naxa snorted. “They wouldn’t listen to us. We said we could get them out, give them a place to go to, but they wouldn’t listen. Just like they wanted to die in the city. Once the perimeter went down, the survivors holed up in one of the buildings and it sounded like everything on this planet hit them at once. We couldn’t take it, standing by I mean. Everyone volunteered. We took the best men and all the armored ground cars from the mine. Went in there. Got out the kids, they made the kids go, some of the women. The wounded, just the ones who were unconscious. The rest stayed. We just got out before the end. Don’t ask me what it was like. Then it was all over, the fighting, and after a bit everything quieted down like you see it now. Whole planet quieted down. When we could, me and some of the other talkers went to see. Had to climb a mountain of bodies of every creature born. Found the right spot. The ones that stayed behind, they’re all dead. Died fighting. Only thing we could bring back then was a bunch of records that Brucco left.”

“They would not have had it any other way,” Kerk said. “Let us know where the survivors are and we will go there at once.”

Naxa gave the coordinates and said, “What’re you going to do now?”

“We’ll contact you again. Over and out.”

“What are we going to do now?” Teca asked. “There’s nothing left for us here.”

“There’s nothing for us on Felicity either. As long as Temuchin rules, we ca

“Go back. Kill Temuchin,” Teca said, his power holster humming. He wanted revenge, to kill something.

“We can’t do that,” Kerk said. Patiently, because he knew the torture the man was feeling. “We will discuss this later. We must first see to the survivors.”

“We have lost everywhere,” Mete said, voicing the words that everyone was thinking.

Silence followed.

21

 The four guards ran into the room half carrying Jason, then hurled him to the floor. He rolled over and got to his knees.

“Get out,” Temuchin ordered his men, and kicked Jason hard on the side of his head, knocking him down again. When Jason sat up, there was a livid bruise covering the side of his face.

“I suppose that there is a reason for this,” he said quietly.

Temuchin opened and closed his great hands in fury, but said nothing. He stamped the length of the ornate room, his trailing prickspurs scratching deep gouges in the inlaid marble of the floor. At the far end he stood for a moment, looking out of the high windows and across the city below. Then he reached up suddenly and pulled at the tapestry drapes, tearing them down in a sudden spasm of effort. The iron ban that supported them fell as well, but he caught it before it touched the floor and hurled it through the many-paned window. There was the crashing fall of breaking glass far below.

“I have lost!” he shouted, almost an animal howl of pain.

“You’ve won,” Jason told him. “Why are you doing this?”

“Let us not pretend any more,” Temuchin answered, turning to face him, a frozen calm replacing the anger. “You knew what would happen.”

“I knew that you would win, and you have. The armies fell before you and the people fled. Your horde has overrun the land and your captains rule in every city. While you rule here in Eolasair, lord of the entire world.”

“Do not play with me, demon. I knew this would happen. I just did not think that it would happen so quickly. You could have allowed me more time.”

“Why?” Jason asked, climbing to his feet. Now that Temuchin had realized the truth, there was no longer any point in concealment. “You said that by accepting you would lose.”

“I did. Of course.” Temuchin straightened his back and looked Unseeingly out the window. “I just had not realized how much I would lose. I was a fool. I thought that only my own life was at stake. I did not realize that my people, our life, would die as well.” He turned on Jason. “Give it back to them. Take me, but let them return.”

“I ca

“You will not!” Temuchin shouted, rushing on Jason, grabbing him up by the neck and shaking him like an empty goatskin. “Change it, I command you.” He loosened his grip slightly so that Jason could gasp in air and speak.

“I ca

“You knew this all along,” Temuchin said almost gently, releasing his grasp. ‘This was my fate and you knew it. You let it happen. Why?”

“For a number of reasons.”

“Tell me one.”

“Mankind can do very well without your way of life. We have had enough killing and bloody murder in our history. Live your life out, Temuchin, and die peacefully. You are the last of your kind and the galaxy will be a better place for your ending.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“There are others. I want the off-wonders to dig their mines on your plains. They can do that now.”

“In wi

“There is. It was a ‘Pyrrhic victory.’ I wish I could say that I am sorry for you, but I’m not. You’re a tiger in a pit, Temuchin. I can admire your muscles and your temper and I know that you used to be lord of the jungle. But now I’m glad that you are trapped.” Without looking toward the door, Jason took a short step in its direction.