Time distorted, and he knew there was but one last thing he could do. Without hesitating Hans lunged forward across the neck of his horse. He saw the gaping maw of the revolver, the eye behind the barrel, face contorted in a mad scream … and then the flash.
“No!”
It was Jurak screaming, as Hans, lifted out of his saddle, tumbled over backwards and crashed to the ground. The dirty yellow-white smoke swirled in a cloud, and through the cloud he saw Tamuka. There was a momentary look of surprise that he had shot Hans, and then, even more enraging, a barking roar of delight.
Jurak drew his scimitar, blade flashing out, catching the light. He caught a momentary glance of those watching. This was now a blood challenge for control of the Bantag Horde. He raked his spurs, the pain in his leg forgotten. His mount leapt forward.
Tamuka, thumb on the hammer of his revolver, cocked the weapon and started to shift aim.
Screaming with a mad fury Jurak charged his mount straight into the flank of Tamuka’s horse. The revolver swung past his face, going off, the explosion deafening him, the flash of it burning his cheek.
Their eyes locked for a second. Even as he started his swing, there was a final instant, a flash of recognition. His rage, a rage which surprised him, for it was a mad fury over what had been done to a human, added strength to his blow.
The look in Tamuka’s eyes turned in that instant to disbelief as the blade sliced into his throat, driven with such force that it slashed clear through flesh, muscle, and bone.
Tamuka’s horse, terrified as a shower of hot blood cascaded over its back, reared and galloped off, ridden by a headless corpse still showering blood.
Jurak was blinded for an instant, not sure if he had somehow been wounded after all by the pistol shot. Then the mist started to clear as he blinked Tamuka’s blood out of his eyes.
He viciously swung his mount around, gaze sweeping the assembly, wanting to shout his rage at them, at all their insanity and bestiality. And in their eyes he saw something that had never quite been there before. It wasn’t just that he was their Qar Qarth. It was that he was their leader. Some went down on their knees, heads lowered.
Something snapped inside and he screamed incoherently at them, holding his bloody scimitar aloft. More went down on their knees; within seconds all were down, heads bowed.
He reined his horse around and looked down. Cursing wildly, he swung off his mount. As he hit the ground his broken ankle gave way and with a gasp of pain he went down on his knees. None dared to rise to help him.
He slowly stood back up and limped the half dozen paces over to where Hans lay. Looking up he saw humans, hundreds of them, running up, led by the dark Zulu. He held up his sword so they could see it, then threw it down by the severed head of Tamuka. The humans slowed, the Zulu turning, shouting a command. They stopped, and, alone, Ketswana came forward.
Jurak knelt down by Hans’s side, Ketswana joining him.
“I’m sorry,” Jurak gasped. “And thank you for my life.”
Hans looked up. Strange, no pain. The dark specter who had trailed his every step across all the years, and all the worlds, had him in hand at last, and, surprisingly, there was no pain.
Still he wondered why he had done it. Was it because I knew I was dying anyhow?
No.
A gallant gesture then? And he wanted to laugh over the irony of it, but no laughter came.
He saw them gazing down. Jurak was saying something, but he couldn’t hear him. He saw Ketswana, tears streaming down his face. He tried to reach up, to wipe them away, as if soothing a child, but for some strange reason his arm, his hands would no longer obey.
They were kneeling side by side, and he fully understood what it was he had been fighting for all along, and what he was now dying for. And he was content.
Then they slipped away … and Hans Schuder smiled as they disappeared into a glorious light.
Exhausted, he stood alone, watching as the sun touched the horizon.
The last of the gunfire died away and he felt cold, alone, empty. Throughout the long day the square had slowly contracted inward, drawing closer and yet closer after each successive charge until the backs of the surviving men were almost touching.
The ground was carpeted with the dead and dying, tens of thousands of Bantag and humans tangled together.
If ever there was a killing ground of madness, this was it. He stood atop the low rise of ground, watching as half a dozen ironclads, the survivors of the daylong fight wove their way up the hill, maneuvering slowly, looking for an open path through the carnage.
The lead machine ground to a halt fifty yards short of the square, the turret popped open, and he saw Gregory stiffly climb out then half slide, half fall to the ground. He looked at the other machines. St. Katrina? No, he had seen that one blow up … the gentle gardener was dead, and Vincent blinked back the tears.
Walking like a marionette with tangled strings, Gregory slowly made his way up the hill. The men around Vincent parted at his approach.
Coming to attention he saluted. Vincent, exhausted beyond words, merely nodded in reply.
“They’re leaving,” Gregory announced, his voice slurring.
“What?”
“What’s left of them, the poor damned bastards. They’re mounting up now, heading north.”
Even as he spoke there was a ripple of comments along the battered line. Vincent looked past Gregory and saw a lone rider appear on the next rise half a mile away. The Bantag rider stood out sharply against the horizon. He held a horse tail standard aloft.
He waved it back and forth and Vincent watched, mesmerized. The Horde rider slammed it down, the shaft sinking into the earth. The rider held a clenched fist aloft and he could hear a distant cry, desolate, mournful. Vincent stepped out from the battered square, removed his kepi, and held it aloft.
The Bantag rider turned and disappeared, leaving the standard behind.
Gregory came to his side, and Vincent turned to face him.
“I hope this was worth it,” Gregory whispered.
Vincent’s gaze swept the wreckage, the tangled mounds of dead. All he could do was lower his head and cry.
“Pat!”
“It’s started?”
Instantly, he was awake, sitting up in his cot. All day long he had been anticipating the attack. Praying in fact that it would come, come before someone finally got through from the west with the orders to stand down or he finally made the suicidal gesture and attacked instead. Rumors had been floating through the army ever since Pat had dropped the telegraph lines and all trains from the west had ceased to arrive.
Only that morning Schneid had come back up to the front, personally bearing a report that rioting had erupted in Suzdal and Roum.
Rick stood in the doorway of the bunker, the sky behind him glowing with the colors of sunset.
“Where are they hitting?” Pat cried, stumbling up from the steps and out onto the battlement.
He was stunned by the silence. There were no guns firing, not even the usual scattering of shots between snipers. Then he heard it, a strange distant keening.
He stepped up onto a firing step and cautiously peered over. He saw though that men were now standing up, some atop the earthworks, fully exposed, and not a shot was coming from the other side.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I’m damned if I know. It started an hour or so ago. This weird chanting. I thought they were getting themselves built up for the assault. I figured to let you sleep as long as possible, though, and waited. Well, this chanting kept on going and going and then about five minutes ago I saw the damnedest thing.”
He suddenly pointed across the river.