Jurak nodded. “Yes, I believe you will.”
“But I promise nothing. I will suggest expansion to the north. It is land belonging to the Nippon, which is still open range. They are very testy about such issues, but if we could give you access to the Great Northern Forest, there is game aplenty there. Perhaps that might help.”
“For the present at least.” Jurak’s voice was cool, distant.
Vincent shifted uncomfortably, and Jurak could sense that he wanted to talk about something else.
He nodded to his son, who refilled his goblet with kumiss.
“We’ve had reports,” Vincent continued.
“Of what?”
“The Kazan.”
Jurak looked straight ahead, wondering how his son was reacting. His gaze focused on Keane’s son, standing behind Hawthorne. The boy was staring straight at him, penetrating pale blue eyes that, if of the Bantag, would mark him as a spirit walker.
Somehow he sensed that the boy knew, and it was disquieting.
Hawthorne looked back over his shoulder at Keane. “Abraham, could you fetch that item you’re carrying for me?”
The boy stirred and turned away.
Abraham Keane opened the saddlebag on his mount. As he reached inside, he looked back at Jurak, who was still staring at him.
Something is bothering him, Abraham thought. All of the Qar Qarth’s attention was focused on him.
Why?
He pulled out the package, wrapped in an oil-soaked wrap, and brought it up to Vincent, who motioned for him to open it. Untying the binding, Abraham laid the cloth open. He picked up the revolver, the bulk of it so large that he felt he should hold it with two hands.
The steel was burnished to an almost silver gleam, and the grips were made of ivory. It was not an old cap and ball weapon from the war, but a cartridge-loaded weapon, the cylinder holding eight rounds of a heavy caliber. As he held it forth, he looked again at Jurak.
Abraham wondered what it would be like to do what his father had done. More than once his father had leveled a revolver into the face of one of the Horde riders and fired, so close, he had heard veterans say, that their manes had burst into flames.
What was it like to kill? he wondered.
Jurak stared at him, the flicker of a smile crossing his features. “Ever been in battle, boy?”
The words were a deep grumble, spoken in the slave dialect, which was taught at the academy to young cadets who would be assigned to the cavalry on the frontier.
“No, sir.”
“Your father killed scores of my warriors with his own hands.”
“I know.”
“Does that make you proud of him?”
Abraham hesitated.
“Speak with truth.”
Abraham nodded. “It was war. Your race would have destroyed, devoured mine. He’s told me he fought so that I would grow up safe, which I have.”
Jurak laughed softly. “He did it for more than that. He did it because he loved it.”
Abraham shifted uncomfortably, gun still in his hands, pointed not quite at Jurak but in his general direction.
What does this one know of me, of my father? Abraham wondered. Is it true that my father did love it, that he gloried in it? He thought of Pat O’Donald, of William Webster, who was now secretary of the treasury and holder of the Medal of Honor for leading a charge. And he thought of the few others of the old 35 th Maine and 44th New York who were still alive, who would come to the house in the evening and never did a night pass when they did not talk of “the old days.” Always there’d be that gleam in their eye, the sad smiles, the brotherhood that no one else could possibly share. Is that what they love, the memories of it? Or was this leader of a fallen race correct, that they loved it for the killing?
“Did you love it as well?” Abraham asked. “I heard it said that after you defeated us at Capua, you rode before your warriors carrying one of our battle standards, standing tall in your stirrups, acknowledging the cheers of your warriors. Did you love that moment?”
Jurak, caught off guard, let his gaze drop for a second. Hawthorne, who had been watching the exchange, reached out and took the heavy revolver from Abraham’s grasp and inverted it, holding the stock toward Jurak.
“Go ahead, take it.”
Jurak, smiling, accepted the revolver, hefted it, half cocked the weapon and spun the cylinder. He raised it up, pointing it toward the flyer, which still buzzed overhead. “A gift?” Jurak asked.
“No, a return.”
Jurak laughed softly. “You speak in riddles, Hawthorne.”
“I think you know what I mean, Qar Qarth Jurak.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“This weapon was taken from one of your dead after the fight at Tamira. You can see it’s of the finest craftsmanship. Its precision, according to my designer of armaments, exceeds anything we could now make. It is obvious it is not an old weapon left over from our war.”
“So?”
“Where did it come from?”
“You said it was looted from one of my dead.”
“A commander of ten thousand as near as we could figure out from his uniform and standard.”
Jurak was silent.
“It is either one of two things, Jurak. First, if you are now making such things, it is in violation of our treaty.”
“You, however, can make whatever machines that please you,” Garva interjected, voiced filled with anger. He stepped up to his father’s side. Nearly as tall as his sire, he looked down menacingly at Abraham.
Abraham struggled for control, not willing to let this one see fear, and yet he suddenly did feel afraid. It had a primal edge, as if he were confronting a terrifying predator in the dark. He suddenly wondered if this one had ever tasted human flesh, and he knew with a frightful certainty that if given the chance, Garva would do such a thing without hesitation.
He forced himself to stare up at Garva and not back down. Jurak extended his hand. “Go on, Hawthorne.”
“Did you make this weapon?”
Jurak shook his head. “The machinery required, the lathes, to cut the cylinder to such perfection, even the refining of the steel-you know we couldn’t do that and keep it hidden for long.”
“Then if you did not make it, how did one of your warriors come to possess it? It’s not sized to a human. It does, however, fit your hand perfectly.”
Jurak looked straight at Vincent, but did not answer.
“The Kazan. Is that it?”
There was a long silence. Abraham turned his gaze away from Garva, again focusing on Jurak. He wondered how one learned to read them, to understand the nuances of gesture, and found it impossible. Always there was that impenetrability he had heard his father speak of so often.
“They are fifteen hundred leagues or more from here,” Jurak finally replied, waving vaguely toward the south.
“And twelve hundred of those leagues are ocean, which they know how to sail. Have you been in contact with them?”
Jurak actually smiled, but said nothing.
“Is that from the Kazan?” Vincent pressed, and though Abraham’s command of the Bantag slave dialect was far from good, he could clearly catch the tone of anger and even of threat in Vincent’s voice.
“Given how this conversation is progressing, I’d certainly take pleasure in meeting these Kazan,” Jurak replied, leaning forward menacingly, the revolver in his hand now almost pointed at Vincent.
Abraham looked up to the riders who, throughout the meeting, had remained motionless on the ridgeline behind them. He could see that they were intently watching the exchange, and more than one was shifting. Several had old rifles from the war out of their saddle sheaths. He could sense their eagerness, their hope that something was about to explode.
“The possession of that weapon…Vincent continued, ignoring the implied threat in Jurak’s gesture. “If there is contact between you and the Kazan, I must urge you to step back.”
“Why? Is there something about to happen between you and them?” Jurak replied, the slightest of mocking tones in his voice. “If so, it could prove most interesting for the Bantag.”