Mother of Demons Read online

  Indira watched Ludmilla's platoon racing in a loop around the right flank of the Utuku army. Ludmilla herself was leading the platoon, and setting a brutal pace. The ranks of the Utuku were already becoming ragged, as they tried to reform in the face of this new and utterly bizarre foe. Their attempts were hopeless, of course. Gukuy were faster than owoc, but they were still much slower afoot than humans. Any humans, much less the young warriors trained under Joseph's brutal regimen.

  Not brutal enough.

  "Andrew—make a note. We must emphasize long distance endurance as well as wind sprints. The Apaches could run a hundred miles a day. Faster, over long distances, than the cavalry of the US Army."

  "Yes, Indira." He jotted in his notebook.

  Still, there's a problem. Food. What good will it do for our warriors to be able to run a hundred miles a day—if they starve at the end of it? Our army cannot remain tied to the slow owoc.

  "Julius—make a note. Resume the experiments with puke jerky."

  "But—ah, yes, Indira." He jotted in his notebook. Muttering, under his breath. He was not altogether sure what to make of this new Indira. He had always adored her thin-featured face. Why did that face now remind him of a sword?

  As Indira watched, Ludmilla's platoon suddenly wheeled and raced directly toward the Utuku right. Even from the distance, she could hear the drums, transmitting orders from the battle leaders. Raggedly, she thought. And it was obvious that the Utuku ranks were beginning to unravel.

  Now.

  But she had misjudged. Ludmilla had a better grasp of the immediate tactics. She held the charge for another few seconds, before she suddenly halted and cast her javelin. A split second later, the rest of the platoon followed.

  The volley sailed over the front rank of the Utuku and fell among the battle leaders beyond. Like so many lightning bolts. Utuku shieldwork was designed to protect against looping flail-blows, not spears. And the wicker-like visors protecting the battle leaders' heads were like matchsticks when struck by heavy spears instead of blowpipe darts.

  "Andrew—make a note for general consideration. Most of the great armies of human history placed a premium on low-echelon initiative and tactical flexibility."

  "Yes, Indira."

  Ludmilla's platoon was now racing away from the Utuku. Their assegais were strapped to their backs. In their hands they carried javelins. Each warrior in Ludmilla and Takashi's platoons had been given four at the beginning of the battle.

  The javelins had been invented by Joseph, in the course of the new training which he had developed in consultation with Nukurren and Jens Knudsen. They were better designed for casting than the heavy-bladed assegai. And the blades were made of bronze obtained from the Pilgrims at Fagoshau. The irreplaceable steel-bladed assegai were saved for close-in work.

  "Rottu—a question. How much bronze can we make every eightday?"

  The gukuy hesitated before responding.

  "I am not certain, Inudira. Not much, at Fagoshau. We can expand the bronze-works, of course. But there is no copper on the Chiton, and very little tin."

  "Make a note, then. We must immediately establish reliable sources for the two metals. And expand the bronzeworks."

  "Yes, Inudira."

  Down on the plain, Ludmilla's sudden retreat had achieved its purpose. Large sections of the Utuku right were lumbering in pursuit. Very unevenly. Confusion and the sudden killing of many leaders were eroding the famed Utuku discipline.

  And it is very hard to resist the temptation of chasing what appears to be a foe in flight.

  She watched, gauging the moment.

  Now.

  But, once again, Ludmilla was right. The platoon leader did not order the counterattack for several more seconds, until the pursuing Utuku were strung out even further. Suddenly, her platoon divided and curved sharply right and left, racing back toward the Utuku. The bewildered barbarians were thrown into utter confusion.

  Now.

  Once again, Ludmilla was right. Two more seconds elapsed before she gave the command. The ensuing volley came at pointblank range, ripping through the Utuku like a scythe.

  "Andrew—that last note?"

  "Yes, Indira?"

  "Emphasize it."

  Racing off again, the platoon reformed in files and curved back around to the southeast. Discipline in the Utuku right flank was disintegrating. The warriors were little more than a mob now, all of them turning to face these terrible demons who were circling them. Within moments, they were faced completely away from the center of the battlefield.

  Indira looked to the center. Takashi's platoon was drawn up there, holding the attention of the Utuku center while Ludmilla harrowed the right. They had no difficulty in doing so. Takashi's first volley had had a catastrophic impact on the battle leaders of the Utuku center. Since then, he had kept the attention of the warriors by trotting his platoon back and forth across their lines, feinting and lunging.

  Her eyes moved to Joseph. The Captain was standing back, on a small knoll rising slightly above the plain, high enough to give him a view of the entire battlefield. Twenty young human warriors stood at his side, Jens Knudsen looming above the others.

  Not far from them, off to the side, stood Nukurren. Gazing down at the huge, scarred figure, Indira felt a sudden sadness. They were deeply in debt to Nukurren, and had tried to express it. Ushulubang herself had offered Nukurren the command of the Pilgrim warriors who were even now approaching the battleground.

  But Nukurren had refused. Had even refused to explain her refusal.

  Yet, in the end, she had chosen to come to the battleground. The morning the little human army set off, Jens Knudsen had entered Nukurren's hut. In his arms he bore the great flail and twofork Nukurren had won years before in the Anshac legions, and her armor. He had saved them from the wreckage of the slaver caravan where he and Nukurren had first exchanged wounds, he explained, and now it was time to return them to her. Saying nothing else, he had left the hut.

  Some minutes later the column of human warriors set off, followed by more than a thousand Pilgrims. All of the Pilgrims were armed with flail and fork; some with armor. Most were former warriors. Some were former helots, fumbling with the unfamiliar weapons in their palps, but determined to do their duty.

  As the column passed Nukurren's hut, she had emerged. In armor, bearing her great flail and two-fork. To the humans, she had been awesome. To the gukuy . . . The Pilgrims had begun hooting then, in a fierce and wavering manner which Indira had never heard, but had no difficulty recognizing. So had the Bedouins ululated, saluting their champions.

  But Nukurren had refused to acknowledge the salute. Had returned the admiration with bleak isolation. Had spoken to none. Had not taken a place in the column, neither with human nor gukuy. Throughout the long march which followed, she had remained to one side, parallel but alone.

  As the march progressed, the Pilgrims lagged further and further behind, unable to match the speed of the human warriors. Of all the gukuy marching to battle, only Nukurren had been able to keep pace. But, always, she marched to the side. What role, if any, she intended to play in the coming battle, no one knew.

  She least of all, thought Indira now, watching Nukurren standing alone on the slope.

  Indira tore her eyes away, and looked back at Joseph. Stretching on either side of him were the remnants of Andrew MacPherson's platoon. Most of the warriors in Andrew's former platoon had been reassigned to the other two. But a small number had been organized into a new formation, led by Jens Knudsen. They were to serve as Joseph's reserve, for the critical moment of the battle.

  Gazing down at Jens' new formation, Indira began to feel the old, paralyzing anguish. She fought it desperately. It had been she herself, after all, who had commanded its creation.

  The warriors in the new formation were more heavily armored than the other humans. They carried no javelins, only the largest assegai. Theirs was not the role of Ludmilla and Takashi's platoons, the fluid ravaging of t
he opponent. Theirs was the role of shock troops. It was they who would be thrown into the schwerpunkt. Not for them the rapid maneuvers of the platoons; not for them, the tactical subtleties; for them—the shattering smash of the hoplite.

  They had been selected, as individuals, for that purpose. The emphasis had been on sheer strength, rather than speed. Upper body strength, in particular. Only that kind of strength could sustain a warrior in the savage close-quarter combat for which that formation was designed.

  They were all male. For the first time in the history of the human colony, the sexes had been segregated. Indira herself had commanded it. She had hated the truth, but would not shy from it. Only Ludmilla, among the human women, had the strength to serve in Jens' new formation. And Ludmilla was needed as a platoon commander.

  She gazed down at Jens Knudsen. Even covered with heavy armor, his golden hair and milk-white skin was easy to spot. Indira thought that of the younger generation of humans, Jens' was perhaps the gentlest and kindest spirit, for all his brutish size and musculature. Indira herself had named the new formation the "shock squad." Jens, with his usual self-deprecating humor, had called his squad the "meatheads."

  "Too slow to run, and too dumb to figure out anything else," he had joked. But Indira could not mistake the pride in his stance, and that of his new squad, as they stood by Joseph's side.

  Alexander's Companions.

  They would suffer the highest casualties, and they knew it. But they were not afraid, because a new emotion was insinuating its way into their souls, like a serpent.

  For the first time in the history of the human colony, an elite had been created. At Indira's own command. She began to look away, then forced herself to look back.

  Not now, no. Not with Jens, never. But—Jens will die, and his children, and their children, and their children—and then, someday ... the Diadochi. And the Praetorian Guard, and the Janissaries, and the knights who savaged Jerusalem.

  Nightmare visions flashed through her mind, ending with the Waffen SS. She felt her face grow stiff.

  Julius gazed at her quizzically. Indira pointed to Jens.

  "I was just thinking how the old Waffen SS would have drooled over him." A rueful grimace; trying to cast off despair with humor. "He could have served as the model for their recruitment posters."

  Julius looked down.

  "Oh, I don't know. He's much too ugly, with that great beak of a nose, and besides—" He looked back at Indira, his expression oddly cold. "Did I ever tell you my family's history?"

  "Not really."

  He shrugged. "Nothing spectacular. And most of it's long forgotten. But there's one episode, from two centuries ago, that was passed on from generation to generation. My family was in Denmark during the Second World War. They lived in Copenhagen, as a matter of fact, the same city where Jens was born."

  Julius pointed down the slope to the young warrior.

  "I stand here today because of his ancestors." His voice suddenly shook with anger. "Damn your fears, Indira! Damn them all to hell!"

  His words were like a sudden, brilliant ray of sunlight, shattering all the darkness of the future. The nightmares fled from Indira's mind, gibbering in terror; and new visions came.

  She remembered the small nation which, conquered and occupied, had still managed to save almost all its Jews from the Nazi butchers; had, through the unorganized and spontaneous actions of thousands of ordinary Danes, smuggled the Jews to safety. The blond-haired, blue-eyed people who had hurled defiance into the face of their racial brethren.

  The kindness of that deed, toward a people of a different race, had come from the common pool of human decency. But the courage had come from their own history, and their own legends, and their own heritage.

  They too had remembered Barbarossa. And if the Germans had chosen to remember the sword of the conqueror—had even named their brutal invasion of Russia after him—the Danes had chosen to remember the shield of the lawgiver.

  The Nazi vision, she knew, had been closer to the truth of the past; but the Danish vision had been true to the future. If, in reality, kings had been unjust tyrants, yet, still, it had been within the shell of kingship that nations forged their justice. The kings were gone, long gone; but justice remained. And if the kings had been hard as iron, the justice was harder still. For justice had been long in the making, and it was not a feeble reed. It was the gleaming steel sword Excalibur, born of ancient dreams, shaped by myths and legends, forged by human struggle, and tempered in the blood of centuries.

  As Indira watched the battle unfold below her, she felt as if her mind were split in two. One half observed the present carnage—attentively, coldly, objectively. The other half ranged across the breadth of human history, like a shaman taking the form of an eagle, spotting all the possibilities of the future. And, finally, leaving all fear behind, filled with the joy of flight and the glory of distant vision.

  Joseph's powerful baritone suddenly rang above the din of battle. Refocusing her attention, Indira saw that Joseph had sent Takashi's platoon plunging into the fray. The Pilgrims had finally arrived, and were taking their place before the Utuku center. Takashi's platoon made a sudden lunge. The Utuku drew back, clustering their shield wall. The feint had succeeded, and Takashi's platoon was now racing across the enemy's front, toward the east.

  As planned, the warriors of the Utuku center were paralyzed. The Pilgrims surged forward, to keep them immobile. The Utuku center would be completely out of the action when Takashi fell—

  Indira looked back to the southeast.

  —on the rear of the Utuku right. Whose attention was completely fixed on Ludmilla's confusing maneuvers.

  Takashi was setting an even more brutal pace than Ludmilla. He and his warriors seemed to fly across the ground, as if possessed by a determination to match the exploits of Ludmilla's platoon.

  "Andrew, take a note. We must give each platoon a name, or a number. Some title by which they can be remembered, and to which their soldiers can identify. In human history, that was called the regimental tradition. It will help develop the morale of the army."

  "Yes, Indira."

  A minute later, the slaughter began. Watching the ferocity with which Takashi's platoon ripped into the Utuku, Indira felt a moment's fear that they had forgotten what she had told them.

  But, again, the commander on the spot had simply gauged the timing better. When they broke off and raced away, not one of the human warriors was more than slightly scratched. But they left a mound of bodies behind them.

  "Andrew—that note. The one concerning low-echelon tactical control."

  "Yes, Indira."

  "Carve it in stone. Better yet, cast it in bronze."

  Ludmilla's platoon now copied Takashi's maneuver, from the other side. Lunge in, at a speed which was almost incomprehensible to the gukuy, and butcher the front ranks. Race away before the ranks behind could overwhelm you with their numbers.

  Working from two sides, Ludmilla and Takashi's platoons were ravaging the Utuku right. Their javelins were now used up; they were wielding the assegai. Fifteen hundred gukuy warriors were now nothing more than a hooting mob, milling about in confusion, their mantles rippling red and ochre, while less than two hundred and fifty human warriors continued their systematic slaughter. Only three human casualties had been suffered so far—and Indira had been relieved to see one of them hobbling off the field under her own power. Winny Mbateng, she thought it was.

  Thank God. Even if your daughter's crippled from the injury, Janet, there will be a place for her. Adrian has been howling for help.

  Indira saw an Utuku piper take aim at one of the human warriors. She caught her breath—then released it a moment later, when the piper's aim was thrown off by the press of the mob around her.

  It's ironic. The gukuy consider pipers nothing more than auxiliaries. But they're what I fear most. Those darts have a range of thirty yards, blown by a gukuy with a powerful siphon. And they're quite accurate within hal
f that distance. Light, of course. Even against a thin-skinned human they can't do much damage unless they strike the eyes or the throat. The light armor which our warriors wear is probably enough to turn most darts, as well as absorbing some of the shock of a flail-blow.

  But if they ever learn how utterly vulnerable we are to animal product—

  "Ghodha—and Rottu. Do any gukuy armies use poisoned darts?"

  Rottu's mantle remained gray, but Ghodha's rippled orange.

  "No, Inudira," replied Rottu. "There are a few small clans of savages in a swamp far to the southeast who are reputed to use poisoned darts. But no civilized people does so. Not even the barbarians. Not even the Utuku. It is a foul abomination in the eyes of Uftu and Kaklo alike. And the war goddess of the Utuku as well."

  Indira was simultaneously relieved—and intrigued. Goloku, in her teachings, had not attempted to deny or undermine the existence of the old religious pantheons. She had simply absorbed them within a new and profoundly more philosophical approach to reality.

  Like Vedanta Hinduism. Sort of. Oh, stop trying to find an exact analogy, Indira. There is none. The Way is unique to itself—and better, I think, that any of the great religions of Earth. I can think of no Terran religion, at least, which from the outset based itself on the principles of dialectics rather than formalism.

  She remembered the schismatic Patriarchs of the later Roman empire. The persecution of the Arian heretics, and the Nestorians, and the Monophysites. And the rigid Aristotelean logic of the medieval churchmen. And the Inquisition; and Bruno burning at the stake. And Galileo's trial.

  Perhaps that much we can avoid. Ushulubang and I, together, can sow much salt in the ground of future dogma.

  Then she remembered the statue at Fagoshau which Ushulubang had shattered with her flail.

  But neither she nor I will live forever. And it is indeed true, as Goloku said, that beings will always lapse into the error of the Answer.