It went on like that, a rapid exchange that was broken suddenly by a sharp twang as Temuchin’s sword snapped in two. He threw himself backward, out of the way of Kerk’s slash, so that instead of gutting him it cut a red gash in his thigh, a minor wound. He sprawled at full length, blood slowly seeping into the golden silk he wore, as Kerk raised his sword in both hands for the last, unavoidable blow.
“Archers!” Temuchin shouted. He would not submit to death this easily.
Kerk laughed and hurled his sword away. “You do not escape that easily, ruling coward. I prefer to kill you with my bare hands.”
Temuchin shouted wordless hatred and sprang to his feet. They leaped at each other with the passion of animals and closed in struggling combat.
There were no blows exchanged. Instead, Kerk closed his great hands around the other’s neck and tightened. Temuchin clutched his opponent in the same way, but the muscles in Kerk’s neck were steel ropes: he could not affect them. Kerk tightened his grip.
For the first time Temuchin showed some emotion other than unthinking anger. His eyes widened and he writhed in the clutch of the closing fingers. He pulled at Kerk’s wrists, but to no avail. The Pyrran’s grip tightened like that of a machine, and just as implacably.
Temuchin twisted about, got his hand in the back of his belt and pulled out a dagger.
“Kerk! He has a knife!” Rhes shouted, as Temuchin whipped it around and plunged it full into Kerk’s side under the lower edge of his breastplate.
His hand came away and the hilt of the dagger remained there.
Kerk bellowed in anger, but he did not release his grip. Instead, he moved his thumbs up under Temuchin’s chin and pushed back For a long moment the warlord writhed, his boot tips almost free of the ground and his eyes starting from their sockets.
Then there was a sharp snap and his body went limp.
Kerk released his grip and the great Temuchin, First Lord of the high plateau and of the lowlands, fell in a dead huddle at his feet.
Mete rushed up to him, the red stain spreading on his side.
“Leave it,” Kerk ordered. “It plugs the hole. Mostly in the muscle, and if it has punctured some guts, we can sew it up later. Get Jason down.”
The guards made no motion to interfere when Rhes pulled away one of their halbends and, hooking it in the bottom of the cage, pulled it crashing to the ground. Jason rolled limply with the impact. His eyes were set in black hollows and his skin was drawn tautly over the bone of his face. Through his rags of clothing red burns and scars could be seen on his skin.
“Is he…?” Meta said, but could not go on. Rhes clutched two of the bars, tensed his muscles, and slowly bent apart the thick metal to make an opening.
Jason opened one bloodshot eye and looked up at them.
“Took your time about getting here,” he said, and let it drop shut again.
23
“No more right now,” Jason said, waving away the glass and straw that Meta held out to him. He sat up on his bunk aboard the Pugnacious, washed, medicated, his wounds dressed, and with a glucose drip plugged into his arm. Kerk sat across from him, a bulge on one side where he had been bandaged. Teca had taken out a bit of punctured intestine and tied up a few blood vessels. Kerk preferred to ignore it completely.
“Tell us,” he said. “I’ve plugged this microphone into the annunciator system, and everyone is waiting to hear. To be frank, we still don’t know what happened, other than the fact that both you and Temuchin think that each lost by winning. It is very strange.”
Meta leaned over and touched Jason’s forehead with a folded cloth. He smiled and put his fingers against her wrist before he spoke.
“It was history. I went to the library to find out the answer, later than I should have, but not too late, after all. The library read a lot of books
to me and very quickly convinced me that a culture cannot be changed from the outside. It can be suppressed or destroyed, but it cannot be changed. And that’s just what we were trying to do. Have you ever heard of the Goths and the Hunnish tribes of Old Earth?”
They shook their heads no and this time he accepted the drink to dampen his throat.
“These were a bunch of backwoods barbarians who lived in the forest, enjoyed drinking, killing and their own brand of independence, and fought the Roman legions every time they came along. The tribes were always beaten, and do you think they learned a lesson from it? Of course not. They just gathered up the survivors and went deeper in the woods to fight another day, their culture and their hatred intact. Their culture was changed only when they won. Eventually they moved in on the Romans, captured Rome and learned all the joys of civilized life. They weren’t barbarians any more. The ancient Chinese used to work the same trick for centuries. They weren’t very good fighters, but they were great absorbers. They were overrun and licked time and time again, and sucked the victors down into their own culture and life.
“I learned this lesson and just arranged things so that it would happen here as well. Temuchin was an ambitious man and could not resist the temptation of new worlds to conquer. So he invaded the lowlands when I showed him the way.”
“And by winning, he lost,” Kerk said.
“Exactly. The world is his now. He has captured the cities and he wants their wealth. So he has to occupy them to obtain it. His best officers become administrators of the new realm and wallow in unaccustomed luxury. They like it here. They might even stay. They are still nomads at heart, but what about the next generation? If Temuchin and his chiefs are living in cities and enjoying the sybaritic pleasures thereof, how can he expect to enforce the nocities law back on the plateau? It begins to look sort of foolish after a while. Any decent barbarian isn’t going to stay up there in the cold when he can come down here and share the loot. Wine is stronger than achadh and they even have some distilleries here. The nomad way of life is doomed. Ternuchin realized that, though he could not put it into words. He just knew that, by winning, he had left behind and destroyed the way of life that had enabled him to win in the first place. That’s why he called me a demon and strung me up.”
“Poor Temuchin,” Meta said, with sudden insight. “His ambition doomed him and he finally realized it. Though he was the conqueror, he was the one who lost the most.”
“His way of life and his life itself,” Jason said. “He was a great man.”
Kerk grunted. “Don’t tell me that you’re sorry I killed him?”
“Not at all. He attained everything he ever wanted; then he died. Not many men can say that.”
“Turn off the annunciator,” Mete said. “And you may go, Kerk.” The big Pynran opened his mouth to protest, then smiled instead, and turned and went out.
“What are you going to do now?” Meta asked as soon as the door was closed.
“Sleep for a month, eat steaks and grow strong.”
“I do not mean that. I mean where will you go? Will you stay here with us?”
She was working hard to express her emotions, using a vocabulary that was not suited for this form of communication. He did not make it any easier for her.
“Does that matter to you?”
“It matters, in a way that is very new.” Hen forehead creased and she almost stammered with the effort to put her feelings into words. ‘When I am with you, I want to tell you different things. Do you know what is the nicest thing that we can say in Pynran?” He shook his head. ‘We say, ‘You fight very well.’ That is not what I want to say to you.”