One heretic, trying to bring about a future nobody can hope for because they can’t even imagine it.
You will have one advantage fairly soon, said Raj.
And what’s that? You two, I suppose?
Raj’s low and wicked laugh. Breech-loading rifles, he replied.
Abel had imagined a triumphal return and an understated but impressive parade through Hestinga with his wagons full of powder. Instead, a single rider met him a league from the eastern gate of Hestinga.
It was one of the cadets, Holman, who had been preparing for a billet with the Regulars. He galloped up on dontback and reined his mount to a stop in a cloud of dust. Abel trotted up to meet him.
“The commander sent me to find you,” Holman said through a fit of coughing.
“Find me? I sent a flitter with news of our return. Don’t tell me it didn’t arrive?”
“He knows you’re coming, and he knows what you’re bringing,” Holman said. “He sent me to tell you to get back as fast as possible with the powder-expend the pack animals if you have to, and even your own mounts.”
“Why? What has happened?”
“You haven’t yet heard?”
“No,” Abel said, raising his voice, trying not to shout in frustration. “I have not. What is it?”
“The Blaskoye are in the Valley,” said Holman. “Lilleheim has fallen.”
PART THREE:
1
“It was a massed attack, as you might expect from that lot,” said Joab. “But the occupation has been disciplined. That’s what bothers me.” They rode along the winding road that led from Hestinga to Lilleheim. On their left, the northwest, were rice paddies irrigated by the elaborate system of rams of water-lifting cranes. The cranes with their woven baskets dotted the landscape to the horizon. To the right, as the ground rose to the southeast, were flax, barley, and wheat fields, which did not require the regular flooding of the rice paddies. Abel knew these fields continued all the way to, and partially up, the Escarpment, which rose, filling the horizon, about a half-league away. “They took the town and stayed in place. I would have expected them to sack the town, kill everyone they could find, and either retreat or keep moving down the road to Hestinga. Instead, they’ve stayed in position and systematically burned every building in the town. The sky has been black with smoke from the thatching for three days. You can see it from here.” He pointed to a black plume to the north wafting lazily upward, as if it were merely the smoke from some enormous cookfire chimney. “The Scouts report that each morning they crucify a new set of village elders outside the southern gate, the one that faces Hestinga.”
“They want us to see it,” Abel said. “It’s a taunt.”
“Clearly,” his father replied. “And they want to enrage us. They’re succeeding. Horst Danziger was a good friend of mine, and he was nailed up with yesterday’s group of cross hangers. Your Sergeant Kruso managed to put a shot in his forehead before noon, blessed-be.”
“Did he? Good man.” Abel remembered Danziger slightly. Joab had many friends for someone who worked as hard as his father did, and it was hard to keep track. Abel knew that Joab considered his cultivation of the smart and useful citizens to be part of his job. “Horst was that big redheaded farmer who used to drink with you at that wine stall in the market you like, wasn’t he?”
“When he was in town on deliveries.”
“That’s right, he was the oil maker. He worked those olive orchards up the Escarpment above the village, didn’t he?”
“Bought them played out and managed to squeeze value from them despite it,” Joab said. “Man after my own heart.” Joab spat into the sand, as if to rid his mouth of a bad taste. “They nailed him to one of his own uprooted trees.”
“Too bad,” Abel said.
“I’m going to burn the Blaskoye bastard who did it at the stake when I catch him,” Joab said matter-of-factly. “And I’m going to use Horst’s oil to do it with.”
“Do you think they are counting on angering you? It could be a feint, to get you out of Hestinga.”
Or an ambush, said Raj.
Unlikely at this juncture, although that is the ultimate strategy the Blaskoye will have to employ when their true invasion begins.
This isn’t a real invasion?
It is a reconnaissance in force. A major raid, to be sure.
Observe:
Again he is on the flyer, soaring up, up, and then leveling out. Toward the north, toward the rising smoke of the burning village. Then through it. Spots of red raging light below, the fires so large they are visible even in the harsh light of the sun through the Land’s cloudless sky.
My deductions from reports and from analysis of the terrain indicates a force of approximately eight hundred Redlanders to take the village and do the sort of damage we have seen.
Observe:
Now past the burning town, and up, up toward the Escarpment and the Lilleheim Trail, the footpath that led up through terraced fields to the crest of the Escarpment wall. Up and over this crest and-
Into the Redlands. And now the terrain becomes abstracted as Abel flies higher and faster. Labels appear. Oasis One. Oasis Two. Blaskoye strongholds along the dry gulch known as the Graben.
In wetter geologic times, the Graben was once a stream itself, a tributary of the River, said Center. Now all that are left are the wet spots. And of course the Blaskoye have found them, for they mean life itself in the Redlands.
Now down, down toward a spot of green in the sea of red. The Great Oasis-
Which seemed to be surrounded by a system of straight lines, like scoremarks in the desert floor. Only when Abel was nearer did he see them for what they were. Corral fences. Campgrounds delineated. Order. Discipline. Numbers.
A huge force of Redlanders was gathered, was being gathered, for he saw more streaming in from outlying lands, many on dak-drawn wagons, some on donts, hundreds more walking.
So Lilleheim is just the tip of the spear.
Correct. Aimed at Treville. At your father, specifically. He is being targeted for his competency and the strength of the Treville Militia and Scouts. He holds the center. If Treville District falls, the Land will be open from north to south.
And if Treville holds firm?
Lindron is too well protected by the Tabernacle Guard, and the Valley too wide at that point for Blaskoye tactics, Raj said, his tone musing. An invasion from the north sweeping down the Valley, I’d suspect.
That is a ninety-two point four percent probability.
And if Treville falls?
Observe:
Terror in his veins, hard breathing. Running, running on his own two legs, his dont slain somewhere behind him in the retreat.
Make the River. Maybe a chance to make a stand. Or, if not, boats. An escape to the east. Anything besides this perpetual clash and retreat, clash and retreat-
But tired, so tired. The pounding of the thickened hoofpads of the Blaskoye mounts behind him thunderous, making it so hard to think-
And then, they are in front of him. A line of donts, with riders in flowing white robes, their faces hidden behind turban windings. Only their eyes shining. Those hard, Redlander eyes watching him.
Rifles raised.
And he running toward them, for he cannot turn, cannot run back, or his pursuers will be upon him.