2
2
The cave was cold and smelled of ammonia. Rick shivered as the old priest led him down winding corridors. “This is all secret,” Yanulf said. “Although a secret better kept in the west than here. Still, secret enough.”
“What is secret?” Rick asked. “Everyone knows there are caverns—”
“But not the size, or the location of the entrances, or how to enter them.”
“Why show me?” Rick asked. He coughed from the ammonia fumes and the chill.
“They may believe you—they pay little heed to me,” Yanulf said. “And I have learned this: that you starmen put your own meaning to what you see.”
“This is all strange to me,” Rick said. “What makes it so cold?”
Yanulf held the torch close to a bulbous slimy mass that covered one wall of the cavern. “The roots of the Protector. A plant. It is why I know the stories of the Demon Sun are true. In all my life I have never seen the Protector larger than a man’s body. Recently it began to grow, and now grows daily. The growth began when the Demon Star was seen in the night sky, as the legends said it would.”
“How does a plant make ice?” Rick wondered aloud. “There must be parts above ground—”
“Aye. It is very large. Thick leaves. In the west the castles are built above caverns, and the Protector climbs the walls and battlements. In this impoverished land they build few castles, and the plant grows on the rocks. You have seen it.”
“Ah.” He remembered a broad-leafed vine with thick stems and ugly white berries. “Scientists—uh, those whose task it is to study nature—in my home would pay much to see a plant like this.” Sunlight to ammonia, and somehow the ammonia produced cold; the evolutionary advantage for such a plant on a planet in a triple-star system was obvious. “What is it you want me to see?”
“The size of the caverns and the barren storerooms. When the Time is upon us, the only safe refuge is in these caves. There will be no crops that year or the next, and poor ones for two more. So say the legends. Your drawings of the suns make me believe them.”
“Which is surprising,” Rick said. “You are a priest of Ius Pater, the Dayfather. Did you not think the stars are gods?”
“Can they not be?” Yanulf demanded. “You say yourself that they are older than worlds and burn forever.”
And I’d best leave it at that, Rick thought. I wonder why all the secrecy. Who are they hiding from?
Yanulf opened a massive wooden door. The smell of ammonia was very strong, and Rick thought the torch dimmed. The priest held the torch high, and coughing, said, “You see. A few miserable offerings. There is meat and grain, aye, enough for a few ten-days, but not enough even for a single winter. How will these people live in the Time?”
The legends said that the approach of the third sun heralded evil times: fire, flood, famine, and typhoon. Those not prepared would die. They were mixed in with tales of the wars of gods, the appearance of fabulous monsters, and garbled stories whose point was the futility of dealing with the evil gods from the skies. It was hard to sort fact from fable, but Rick didn’t doubt there would be hard times ahead. The whole climate would change.
They went deeper. The caverns were quite large, and some went far below ground level, back into the granite itself. Water trickled through some of the chambers. Others were choked with ice.
“It is said that Yatar demands sacrifices,” Yanulf said. “These are stored away, to be cared for by the priests and acolytes. In some lands the storerooms are kept filled. But not here.”
Eventually Yanulf led the way back out of the caves. Rick was surprised to see how far they’d traveled underground. “So it is in the other caverns of Tamaerthon,” Yanulf said. “The priests and acolytes tell me that their storerooms are as barren as these.”
“I’ll take their word for it,” Rick gasped. He walked faster toward the open air and sunlight.
* * *
Drumold was horrified. “No harvests for two years? Then aye are we doomed. One year of poor harvest and we are starving before spring.” For luck he spat into the log fire burning on the hearth of his council room.
“There should be a time of good harvest first,” Rick said. “At least I hope so. I’m not much at climatology, but the legends say so, and it’s not unreasonable.”
“You know little of Tamaerthon,” Drumold said. “In the best years we hae little enough land, and must take our chances in raids on the Empire. Nae, nae, the gods hate us, to let us be born in such times. I had hoped the legends false.”
“But we have to do something,” Tylara said. “You are Mac Clallan Muir. You have sworn to protect the clansmen.”
“And I have!” Drumold thundered. “Are we not free of the Empire? Have the imperial slavemasters come to our mountains these ten years? Lass, I do what I can, but I am no magician, to grow crops in a stone quarry!”
“We can help,” Gwen said. “We have ways of farming that may increase the yield—”
“Lassie, I tell you there is no land to farm,” Drumold said moodily. “You hae seen that our best land is now split and cracked—”
“Yes.” She spoke to Rick in English. “Heavy rains when they didn’t expect them. Just showing them contour plowing will do a lot to stop the gullies—”
“In time to help?” Rick asked. “If we’ve got this figured right, they’ll need to work their arses off starting next spring.”
Drumold stared at them suspiciously. “I like it not when you speak so,” he said.
“My apologies,” Rick said. “Is there no land not plowed, then?”
Tylara laughed. “There’s land enough in the Roman Empire. Fields left as parks for Caesar. Forests of game for Caesar. Herds for Caesar’s gods. There’s food and land there.”
“A cruel joke,” Drumold said. “There’s food and land, aye. And legions to defend them, and the slavemarket for those who enter the Empire without Caesar’s leave.”
“Do you forget Rick’s star weapons?” Tylara asked. She turned to Rick. “Your friends have taken all of Drantos with their weapons. Can we not do the same with the Empire?”
Dammit, I wish she wouldn’t look at me that way, Rick thought. I am not a god. “I do not think so,” he said. “Besides, there have to be better ways than fighting. Can’t we parley with the current Caesar?”
Drumold and Tylara both laughed. “The only way Caesar wants to see any kin of mine is in chains,” Drumold said. “We have little to sell to him save wool. What we get from Caesar we take with sword and bow.”
If Caesar wouldn’t parley, there might be another way to get his attention. “How strong is this Empire?” Rick asked.
“Bring the maps,” Drumold shouted. He waited while a henchman unrolled parchments. “The Empire is no’ so large as it was in my grandfather’s day,” he said. “But they hold the fertile lowlands, and the foothills, here and here. They keep a legion of four thousand mercenaries in this fortress.” He indicated a point some twenty miles from where the foothills became steep mountains leading to Tamaerthon. “Within a ten-day they can have two more, and another ten-day an additional three.”
And we’ve got about a hundred rounds for the rifles, Rick thought. “That’s pretty heavy odds,” he said carefully.
“The other starmen have taken all of Drantos,” Tylara said. “Can you not do as well?”
“They needed the armies of Sarakos to do it.” And I suspect Sarakos has reason to regret his bargain. He’s not likely to be much more than a puppet for André Parsons. Serves him right.
Lowlands. In about five years, maybe less, that new Roman Empire was going to be under water—all but the high plateau that held Rome itself. And by that time the people of Tamaerthon would be starving. Except Mac Clallan Muir and his family. They wouldn’t starve. According to Yanulf, the clan leaders and their children would—in theory, willingly—offer themselves as a propitiation to the gods. It came with the job of leader. In Drumold’s grandfather’s time, it had happened after three years of bad harvests, which was how Drumold’s grandfather had got the position of high chief of Tamaerthon.
Damnation, there had to be something he could do. And he wasn’t too likely to talk Tylara out of jumping off that cliff into the sea, either. That was one girl who was likely to take her duties seriously.
“You have raided the Empire in the past?”
“Aye,” Drumold said.
“Tell me more of the Empire. How are the legions armed?”
“With lances and swords. How else?”
“Lances and swords—they’re horsemen, then?”
Drumold seemed surprised. “Aye. Horses and centaurs. Mostly horses.”
“Not footsoldiers.” Rick described a classical Roman legionary: square shield, pilum, and gladius hispanica.
“There are no such anywhere I know of,” Drumold said. “Ken ye any in your western lands, Priest?”
“No.” Yanulf studied Rick’s face. “What makes you think there might be?”
As near as he could figure it, the Shalnuksis had brought an expeditionary force from Earth in about 200 a.d., about the time of Septimius Severus. That had to be when the ancestors of these new Romans arrived. Severus still employed classical foot-marching legionaries, a bit degenerated from those of Caesar’s time, but still the most effective infantry Earth would see until gunpowder. Evidently the same thing had happened to legions here as happened on Earth: they fell to heavy cavalry and lack of discipline. Now the heavy cavalry ruled everywhere that the terrain was suitable. This Rome was more like the Holy Roman Empire—aha! There would have been another expedition in about 800, the time of Charlemagne. This Rome must be the Holy Roman Empire. But he couldn’t explain all that.
“One of the greatest kingdoms in our history was armed that way,” he said. “Uh—what religion is the Empire?”
“They call themselves Christian,” Yanulf said. “But the Christians of the southern lands say they are not.”
“Yatar does not prosper in Rome, then?”
“No.”
“Have they ice caverns? How did Rome survive the Time?” Rick asked.
Yanulf spread his hands. “They do not welcome visitors. Or rather, their slavemasters welcome them all too well. It is said that there are caverns in Rome, but who attends them I do not know. It is also said that there is a great library with many records of previous Times, but again this is not of my own knowledge.”
Gwen had been listening with a growing look of amazement. “Rick, what are you thinking of?” she demanded.
That earned her a sharp look from Drumold, who wasn’t used to having women speak up that way.
“North is barren,” Rick said. “West is the salt marsh and west of that Parsons and Sarakos. South of us is mostly ocean. If we’re going to get anything to store up for the Time, we’ll have to take it from Rome.”
“Man, are ye daft?” Drumold asked. “We raid the Empire, true, and done quickly, we often bring back cattle and horses. But we seldom escape punishment from the legions.”
“He is not daft,” Tylara protested. “He can—I have heard him speak of battles before. Of his victories over the Cubans—”
Yeah, I brag a lot when you’re around, Rick thought. “What kind of punishment? What do the legions do?”
“Sometimes nothing,” Drumold said. “But if we annoy them enough, they bring their army into the hills.”
“And you fight them—”
“We try,” Drumold said. “Aye, and we can win battles. But they come on, and we must take to the hills. They burn the villages and the crops and slaughter the flocks. Ofttimes we lose more than ever we gained. The Empire is a giant best left unawakened.”
“But you have won battles against them,” Rick said. “You must have, or they’d have simply occupied Tamaerthon and had done with it.”
“Aye, we’ve beaten them in the passes,” Drumold said. “In the passes, in the hills. But no one has ever beaten the legions on the plains. I think no one remembers the last time anyone tried.”
So far it sounded a lot like the Scottish border country. Scotland remained free, but just barely. But there had been a time after Bannockburn when England feared Scotland . . . The rifles would probably win a single battle. The result wouldn’t be anything more significant than looting a border province, but that could be the difference between life and death for Mac Clallan Muir. And for Tylara.
An organized raid, with a wagon train to carry out grain and a properly organized force to delay the legions while the wagons got into the passes. It was possible.
“How many men could you put into the field against the Empire?” Rick asked. “For the biggest raid ever. Something to sing about for a hundred years.”
Drumold frowned. “Not all the clans would respond to the summons,” he said. “Perhaps three hundred lances. Two thousand archers. Another three thousand lads wi’ swords. Perhaps a thousand more freedmen armed wi’ whatever they can find. No more.”
“And the nearest legion is four thousand strong,” Rick mused.
“Four thousand legionaries,” Drumold protested. “Wi’ mail shirts, and good horses. Man, on level ground they’ll ride us down.”
Two thousand archers. Edward had four times that many at Crécy, but Edward faced the entire chivalry of France, at least thirty thousand men. Proportionally, Tamaerthon could field more troops against the Empire than Edward ever had.
But there was a vast difference. Archers alone could never face cavalry. Edward’s main line at Crécy had been dismounted men-at-arms, fully armored knights. From what Rick had seen, Tamaerthon’s three hundred lances would be at most five hundred men with no more than half of them armored. There was no way five hundred could form a shield for the archers. The legionary cavalry would sweep through. Once at close quarters, it would be all over for the archers.
Gunpowder? No. Even assuming Gwen was wrong about the possibility of the Shalnuksis helping Parsons, there just wasn’t enough time. They’d need at least a thousand arquebuses and a ton of gunpowder. They’d need ring bayonets, too. It would take years. No. It wouldn’t hurt to have some of the younger clan warriors start a systematic search for sulfur, just in case, but gunpowder wasn’t the answer.
But there was another way. Heavy cavalry had been finished on Earth well before gunpowder put the final nails in their coffins. “Have any of your clansmen ever drilled with pikes?”
“Pikes?” Drumold asked.
“A long pole with a sharp metal point.”
“Ye mean spears. We have spears.”
“No, I mean pikes. How long are the spears you use? What formation do you fight in?”
That took a while. Eventually a henchman brought in a typical weapon. It was about six feet long, far too short to be any use against cavalry. The pikes used by the Swiss, and later by the landsknects, had been eighteen feet long. As for formation, men who could afford no better weapon than a spear were peasants and didn’t fight in any formation at all. They just went off to battle in droves and died in droves.
“How long can you keep the clansmen together without fighting?” Rick asked. “To drill.” He had to explain the concept of training and drill. By now even Tylara was wondering about his sanity.
“The fields and herds would go to waste,” Drumold protested. “And there’s nae enough to feed such a horde in one place.”
“There’s food in the caverns.”
“For the Time,” Yanulf protested. “And not enough for that.”
“Not enough for the Time,” Rick agreed. “But enough to feed an army in training. What good will it do to keep what little we have? A properly trained army can beat the legions. We can march in—” he thought rapidly. There’d not be enough time for real training, and keeping the men too long without a battle would be disastrous for morale. “—in six ten-days.”
“Harvest time,” Drumold shouted. “Now I know ye’re daft. You’d strip the land of the men at harvest time.”
“You’ve said yourself it will be a poor harvest,” Rick said. “Leave it for the women and children to gather.”
“What do we eat for the winter?”
“It will be harvest season in the Empire, too. We take their crops. And they have to have granaries or they couldn’t support regular troops in garrison. We’ll have that grain, too.”
“And you truly believe you can defeat a legion wi’ your star weapons?” Drumold said.
No, I can’t possibly. But they’re not invincible—or wouldn’t be if everybody didn’t think they were. There’s one way to fix that. “Sure. We’ve got other weapons you haven’t even seen. But Mason and I can’t do it alone. We’ll need your lads properly trained and properly armed.” Now’s the time to back out, he thought. To hell with that. “If we’re going to do it, late harvest season is the time.”
“ ’Tis a bold plan,” Drumold said.
Tylara’s brother had listened in silence. Now he stood. “I have lost comrades to the imperials,” he said. “And I for one would like the chance to repay.”
Tylara smiled happily. “It would be better to lose and die on the field than to starve in the Time,” she said. “But with Rick’s aid, we will not lose.”
“You are crazy,” Gwen said in English. “Stupid, bloodthirsty crazy—”
“Is it better if we all starve. Tamaerthon and the Empire alike? Do you have a better suggestion?”
“We don’t have to stay here—”
“No,” Rick said. “We don’t have to. But I’m not running this time. I’ve given up running.”