“Don’t get involved in it, Jurak,” Vincent replied. He sounded almost as if pleading, which Abraham found uncomfortable, but then he realized that it was a heartfelt warning.
“I don’t want another war with you. We fought our fight. We don’t need another such bloodletting, because if there is, we both know the end result.”
Jurak grunted and shook his head. As if bowed under with weariness, he slowly stood up and stretched, then stepped closer to Vincent.
Abraham realized that at last he was seeing anger-the flat nostrils dilating, mane bristling slightly along the neck, the brown wrinkled skin shifting in color to a brighter hue. “Human, we are not slaves. We are not cattle.”
He said the last word in the old tongue, the meaning of it quite clear.
Vincent stood up as well, though the effect simply made the difference in their size more pronounced. Hawthorne barely came up to the Qar Qarth’s chest.
“If they are out there,” Vincent said, “stay out of it. If we do find them, and there is a war, stay out of it. I tell you this not just as a representative of my government, but as a soldier who once faced you in battle. We do not want another war with you. You have nothing to gain by it except slaughter.”
“We have our pride,” Garva interjected.
“Silence!” Jurak shifted, gaze locked on his son for a brief instant, and yet Abraham wondered if he was indeed angry, if the son had not spoken what Jurak felt.
Jurak pointed the gun straight at Vincent. “This weapon proves nothing to me other than your fears. Your fear of a Horde you cannot even find; a fear of us, a fear of yourselves.” He laughed darkly. “You are afraid of becoming like we once were, aren’t you? Your pity stayed your hand, and now you are afraid.”
“Pity?” Vincent cried. “In the name of God, we were all sick of the killing. Remember, it was a human, a cattle who saved your life from that insane animal, the Qar Qarth of the Merki.”
There was a flicker of doubt, of sadness, on Jurak’s face. “Yes, Hans,” he said quietly.
“Then in his name, stay out of this. I’ll see what I can do about expanding your territory, perhaps even easing the restrictions on making machinery, as long as it can’t be used for weapons. I’ll do that in the name of Hans and on my honor as a soldier.”
“You would do that, Hawthorne. I have heard of this religion you once believed in, this thing called Quaker. Tell me, do you still have nightmares over all whom you’ve killed?”
Vincent stiffened and then stepped back. “I’ll forget that question,” he said, his voice filled with icy menace.
Jurak nodded. “I offer apology.”
Vincent, struggling for control, could only give a jerky nod of reply.
“There is nothing else to be said here today,” Jurak announced. “We understand each other. I have begged, and you have threatened, and now we understand.”
– “I have not threatened,” Vincent finally replied, his voice strained. “I have tried to explain things as they are.”
“As have I.”
“My adjutant will deliver a written statement to your camp tomorrow, detailing our understanding of what transpired today. Let us ponder what we’ve discussed and agree to meet again tomorrow or the day after.”
“You have such a love of things in writing, you humans. My old world was like that, too. It is one of the few things about it I don’t really miss.”
“If there is anything else you wish to communicate, I’ll remain camped here for a while.”
Jurak looked at him warily.
“By the treaty signed between us, I and an appropriate escort have the right to traverse your territory, though I would prefer if I did so as an invited guest who has received your permission.”
“My permission?” Jurak laughed softly.
“This is, after all, your land.”
“By your sufferance.”
“I wish you saw it differently.”
“How can I?” There was an audible sigh. “You humans, how can you know what I think? You know nothing of the world I came from, where we were the sole masters. The things I knew there, about the history of our greatness, the half-formed knowledge I still carry of weapons that could sweep you away in a single day, but which I do not understand how to make. Tell me, on your old world, did you not have nations that subjugated and annihilated others solely because they could?”
Vincent did not answer.
“I see that here now. No matter what your intentions, your sense of honor, as you call it-the fact that you and I can in some way respect each other as two former enemies-will not change the inevitable. I know how such things must always end.”
Vincent sadly shook his head. “The better angels of our nature,” he whispered.
“What?”
“A saying by our president back home, the one this young officer”-he nodded toward Abraham-“was named after. He once said that. I wish we could be touched by that now, Jurak.”
But then he pointed at the revolver still in the Qar Qarth’s hand.
“If that, and what it implies, does not unravel everything.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned away and walked to his mount.
Abraham remained where he was for a few seconds longer, looking at the two.
Garva was rigid, gaze fixed on Hawthorne’s back, and he sensed that if the revolver had been in this one’s hand, Vincent might very well be dead. Garva, realizing he was being watched, looked over at Abraham.
“There will be a day,” he hissed, and then turned away.
Vincent looked next at Jurak, but could not read him. Wondering how to withdraw, he hesitated for an instant, then simply came to attention and saluted.
Jurak, a flicker of a smile again on his face, nodded. “At least I will say this,” he said slowly, “your General Hawthorne has the spirit of a warrior, and I believe that in his heart, he knows us and sees the tragedy of all that was and all that shall be.”
“And what, sir, will you do in reply?” Abraham asked.
“Do? Survive, human, survive.” Jurak turned and walked away.
Abraham came up to Vincent’s side and gently helped him to mount, then swung into his own saddle.
“There’s going to be a war, isn’t there, sir?” he asked.
Vincent, saying nothing, rode back to where the regiment was digging in for the night’s encampment.
Abraham looked toward the bloodred setting sun that hung low on the horizon, the vast, empty steppes bathed in its bloody light. Strange, it was such a beautiful sight, even though it was filled with foreboding.
A random thought came to him. He wondered where his friends Richard and Sean were. Perhaps, out on the vast open sea, such a sunset was indeed a sailor’s delight; a portent of at least one more day of peace.
FIVE
He awoke to hell.
As consciousness returned, he could hear Sean O’Donald’s low rasping breath. Good, he was still alive.
Or was it good? No. Death was the only way out now, better if Sean had died from the last beating.
Eyes swollen nearly shut, Richard turned his head to look at his comrade, chains around their wrists, hanging suspended from the ceiling of the darkened cabin.
As the ship rose and fell, they slowly swung back and forth, Sean groaning as he brushed against the cabin wall, then swung away.
The only illumination came from a narrow slit of light through a slightly ajar wooden porthole cover.
Richard Cromwell wished that the room were completely dark so that he could not see the table across from them. Knives, pincers, and whips were laid upon the table, the only furnishing in the narrow room other than the chains that bound them.
How long had it been? He wasn’t sure. Definitely a day. Had there been a night? If so, he couldn’t remember now. His universe was focused on the pain; the racking thirst that was nearly as terrible; the realization that there was no way out, that they were the prisoners of the Kazan and death was the ultimate outcome.