He had accepted peace to save them, and for a while he had even harbored a dream that somehow he could find a way to preserve them. He knew now that was folly.
He looked over at his son, asleep in a side alcove of the yurt, and his chosen companion of the moment curled up by his side.
My son is of them now, and I am but a stranger in this terrible land. My son dreams of glory, of the ride, of the return to what was.
He looked down at the goblet, the foaming drink stained pink, and took another sip.
And I have become like them as well, he realized. I have learned to hunt, the joy of the ride, even though the land is now limited, to listen to the chant singers, to gaze at the stars and tell tales of what lay beyond the stars while the fire crackled, the scent of roasted meat filling the air. And I have learned to eat of the flesh of cattle.
If Hawthorne but knew of that, what would be the reaction? Their meal tonight, a lone prisoner snatched in a border skirmish, had been led in and sacrificed even though the true moon feast was not until tomorrow, but such niceties were no longer observed.
They had slowly roasted the limbs while he was still alive, his mouth gagged so that his cries might not carry to the Yankees encamped nearby. Then the shamans had cracked the skull open, poured in the sacred oil, and roasted the brains while the victim still breathed, listening to his final strange utterances for signs from the gods and ancestors. The blood had been drawn off to flavor the drinks of the Qars and the Qar Qarth, a now precious brew that not so long ago even the youngest of cubs had savored.
“The night is passing, Qar Qarth Jurak.”
An envoy stood at the entryway to the yurt, the first glow of sunrise behind him. The guards of the Qar Qarth flanked him, ready to allow admittance, or, if ordered, instant death for any who dared to disturb him.
He motioned for Velamak of the Kazan to enter.
The envoy offered the ceremonial bow to the purifying fires glowing in their braziers to either side of the entryway and came forward, again inclining his head as he approached.
“Stop the bowing and take a drink,” Jurak said, beckoning to the half empty bowl.
The envoy picked up a goblet, poured a drink, and sat down on a cushion across from the Qar Qarth. Then he raised the cup in salute, following the ritual of dipping a finger in and flicking droplets to the four winds and the earth.
“You’ve learned our customs well, Velamak,” Jurak said.
“As an envoy such things are important”-he smiled knowingly-“in the same way you had to learn when first you came here.”
Jurak stirred, not sure if there was some sort of hidden meaning here, but then let it pass.
“I am curious,” Velamak continued, “about your world.”
“Yes?”
“The fire weapon.”
“Atomics.”
“Yes, that.”
Jurak smiled. “And you want to know its secret.”
“Think what you could do with such a thing.”
“What we could do, or should I say, what the Kazan could do,” Jurak replied, his voice cool.
“We do have some skills.”
“That my people do not.”
Velamak shifted, taking another sip, his gaze drifting to where Garva and his consort slept. “You must admit that when it comes to machines, your people are limited, whereas mine are not.”
“I think, Velamak, that even for you such a weapon is beyond all of us,” he hesitated for a moment, “and I pray it always shall be.”
“Even if our race is finally annihilated by the Yankees?” Jurak barked a laugh and sipped his drink. Before him was perhaps the answer to all his bitter prayers. Or was it a curse? he asked himself, remembering the old saying to never beg too hard of the gods, or they just might grant you your wish.
Here was an envoy of the Kazan Empire, a realm across the Great Ocean that dwarfed anything imagined by the Horde riders or their human opponents. Here lay the true balance of power to this world.
Here was the possible redemption of his people, a path to survival. Up until the meeting with Hawthorne he had harbored a thought that perhaps there was another way, to move north, and by so doing avoid completely what was coming. If there was to be war between the unsuspecting humans and the Kazan, let it come.
Surprisingly, he did trust Hawthorne and his word. Twenty years of dealing with him had taught him that. Hawthorne believed in honor, even to a hated foe. He was haunted as well by a guilt that made him easier to maneuver. Yes, Hawthorne would go back to their Senate, would plead his case. There would be arguing, the Chin would cry yet again for final vengeance, the Nippon would refuse, and six months from now, when the grass of the steppes was brown, he’d return with a vague promise that he would try again next year.
Equally evident was what Velamak was offering.
“This half-life of radiation that you mentioned in our last conversation, what is it?”
Jurak smiled. “The rate of radioactive decay. Do you understand what I speak of?”
Velamak smiled and shook his head. “Perhaps those of my people who study such things do. Remember, I am just a messenger of the emperor.”
“And a priest of your order,” Jurak added.
Velamak said nothing.
“Tell your people they need to achieve a fissionable mass through a controlled and uniform implosion.”
He smiled as he spoke, knowing that the words were meaningless to the envoy but would be faithfully reported. Perhaps someone back in their capital would vaguely grasp the concept, but to make it a reality, would take far more than a nation that still used steam power to propel its ships and weapons.
“Achieve that, and you can bum a city, a hundred thousand die in an instant, a hundred thousand more die later from poisoning of the air. And no one can return to that place until the half-life of the fissionable material has resulted in a drop below fatal levels of radiation. Does that explain it?”
Velamak gave him a cagey smile. “You talk in riddles.”
“Not on my old world. Every student learned it. The question was how to make it. We were in the eighteenth year of the war of the Pretender before it was achieved by the False One’s side. A spy stole the secret and gave it to our side. On the day I left my world, eleven years later, more than five hundred such weapons had been made and exploded. Entire continents were wastelands. I got dosed at the Battle of Alamaka.”
He rolled his sleeve to show a bum scar on his arm where the hair did not grow.
“The warriors to either side of me were looking in the direction of the blast and were struck blind.”
“A weapon that blinds, how fascinating.”
“Not if you were there,” Jurak whispered.
He remembered the way his tent companions had thrashed in their trench, eyes scorched to bloody pulps, while the blast and shock wave thundered over them. He recalled the terror of wondering if he had been fatally dosed. He had been ordered to shoot his blinded companions, since they would be a burden if allowed to live.
Jurak sighed and took another drink. “I suspect someday I’ll find a lump or start coughing up blood and it will kill me at last.”
“I suspect that even if you did know how to make this thing, you would keep it hidden from us.”
Jurak smiled. “You can be certain of it.”
“Even at the cost of the people you now lead?”
“Believe me, Velamak, everyone dies in the end from it. Stick to the weapons you already know.”
“Yet part of the reason I was sent here was to gain information so that we might have weapons to defeat the Yankees when the time came.”
“And what time is that?”
“When we are ready.”
Again Jurak laughed. “We have been playing this game of words for months. You are torn apart by war. How many contenders to the throne are there?”