Spirit of Empire 4: Sky Knights (20 page)

Atiana focused on Havlock. “I’ve been trying to discover why you don’t kill all the gleasons from the safety of this ship. Is that it?”

“Partly. We do kill gleasons from our ships, but not in large numbers. Gleasons are not particularly smart, but they’re not stupid either. Did you know they have a language?”

“Many creatures communicate with us and with each other. That does not make them smart.”

“Agreed, but imagine this: you’re a gleason. A thousand ships suddenly appear and start killing all of you. What would you do?”

She thought hard, then turned to Turmae. “If we were going to die anyway, we would rise up and fight to the last man.”

Turmae’s eyes widened, then they narrowed to the eyes of a fighter. Yes, her words felt right.

She focused back on Havlock. “We can’t let them attack all at once. Our lands would turn red. What’s the solution?”

“I’m still working on one, but whatever solution we devise, it cannot force the gleasons to attack you all at once. I’ll never have the resources to protect you from an attack of that magnitude. This I do know: the solution includes showing your soldiers and farmers and merchants how to fight these terrible creatures. To prevail against the gleasons, your people and mine have to join together.”

* * * * *

They orbited the planet several times with Havlock pointing out major areas of civilization. He clarified Atiana’s understanding by having the AI outline those civilizations with colored lines. Scientists aboard the transporter had been studying the planet since their arrival, and they were beginning to differentiate and formalize the boundaries of the many kingdoms, some of them quite large. Differences in language tended to follow major geographical boundaries such as oceans, mountain ranges, and deserts, though political subdivisions seemed to play a part as well. Specialists were busy formulating translations which would end up in translator devices.

“Our world will never be the same again, will it?” Atiana asked.

Havlock, continually amazed by this woman, found himself once again awed by her leap of understanding. “It won’t. Our standard policy is to leave new civilizations alone, completely alone, to develop at their own pace. The moment the first gleason arrived here, that ended for you.”

“You say develop. We would eventually build sky ships of our own?”

“Many civilizations do. That’s when we show ourselves.”

“What of those who don’t?”

“Developing worlds go through the same issues a child goes through as it grows to adulthood. In most cases, there are periods of warfare between the various peoples, and in some cases civilizations do not survive.”

She looked at him in horror. “Entire civilizations cease to exist?”

He nodded. “You’ve seen our weapons. There are stronger weapons that can destroy all life on a planet. Sometimes wars are even fought with weapons that cause disease.”

“How awful. So we are like children to your Empire?”

“You are children who have been ripped from your childhood and forced into adulthood, not unlike the way you became queen.”

“It was sudden and a shock.”

“You seem to have the knack for it. I think your people will come to accept us, but it’s not a sure thing. Actually, there’s grave danger for your world as it transitions to adulthood. I’m talking about problems that will arise after we’ve dealt with the gleasons.”

“If that day ever comes, you’ll be done.”

He frowned. “Your people have seen our sky ships, they’ve seen our lights which don’t require flames, they’ve seen our communications devices, and they’ve seen and used our weapons. If we give you weapons, then leave, what’s to stop your largest kingdoms from swallowing up the smaller ones?”

“My province would not be swallowed easily.”

“Hence more fighting, fighting which could get out of hand, possibly ending your civilization. No, Atiana, we will not be able to leave here for a long, long time.”

“So you’ll rule us?”

“No. We have not come to conquer. We might set some examples and we might force cooperation in some cases, but our civilization does not condone taking over emerging worlds. We’ll send scholars and healers and statesmen, but we won’t give you all of our knowledge. We want your people to discover things on their own and become who they choose to become, not who we tell them to become.”

“This is all new to me, but I don’t see how that can happen.”

“Neither do I. My people don’t either. Once we’ve dealt with the gleasons, my Queen will send experts to replace her warriors.”

Atiana chose her next words carefully. “You’re one of those rare people who has the gift of leadership. I sense that clearly. Will you lead those experts?”

His lips formed into a thin line. “To you I’m Sky Lord, but to my people I’m just a soldier. We’re really just scouts. When the rest of my army gets here, I’ll be replaced by soldiers of higher rank. When we’re done with the gleasons, maybe even before we’re done, we’ll bring scholars to help guide you through your development. They don’t know how they’re going to do that yet—no one does—but they’ll do their best to help you develop as you see fit. My hope is that someday, some day long after you and I are gone, my Empire will leave your planet, but only because you will have become an equal member within that Empire.”

“I can’t see that far. Until every gleason is dead, I see only today. What’s your . . . what’s our next step?”

“I’m still thinking about it. You taught me that the lifeblood of kingdoms rests in the farms and towns outside the city, not within the city itself. The caravan was an experiment to see if I could control the movement of gleasons, and it’s been partially successful. The caravan pulled a lot of gleasons from surrounding areas to ourselves. We believe it’s because the gleasons seek the challenge of a hard fight more than they seek food. If we can send out more caravans, we might pull all the gleasons from your lands, allowing your townspeople to return to their homes.”

He thought for a moment, then added, “My plan might fail, in which case we’ll try something else. I’m not locked into any one particular plan.”

“What if we help you establish forts somewhere, forts manned by soldiers?”

“It might be worth a try, but remember—gleasons are not stupid. If I’m right about them seeking challenge more than food, they might try attacking a fort for a while, but if they never get inside, I think they’ll go where they have some hope of winning.”

“Unless they’re smarter than you think,” she replied. “Maybe the challenge of taking a fort is just what they want.”

He looked at her yet again with lifted eyebrows. “You could be right. Whatever we do, I welcome your counsel. Gleasons are breeding as we speak, increasing their numbers every day. As bad as it is now, it will be worse next year and the year after that. Equally important, what you’ve gone through in your kingdom is happening everywhere on the planet every moment of every day and night. I have a whole planet of starving, frightened people to save.”

She reached a virtual hand out to his sleeve and squeezed. “Maybe you should bring food while we figure it out?”

“Maybe I should move all your people to another world and leave this one for the gleasons. It might be easier in the long run.”

Her eyes widened. “You can do that?”

He shrugged. “Probably not, but it remains a possibility if we fail against the gleasons. I am not going to let your civilization fade away through no fault of its own.”

The fire returned to her eyes, but it was a good fire. “I will hold you to your words, sir. They are words I hope you’ll let me share with other kings and queens and knights.”

“Will you?”

“Yes. If you’ve given me nothing else today, you’ve given me a sense of who my people are. My kingdom comes first, then my province, but I will serve my world as well. I hear them calling to me for help. I won’t let them down.”

“But your kingdom comes first.”

“Bring me food and healers. It will free me to look beyond my borders.” Her eyes opened wide as another idea struck her. She visibly worked through the details, then gripped his arm harder
.
“Give me a sky ship,” she said. “With a sky ship I can almost be in two places at once. In fairness, I have little control over how we fight gleasons, even gleasons within my kingdom. You have that control. If I help you spread your message to other parts of my world, it will free you to focus on the fighting.”

He reached for her virtual hand and pulled it from his arm, then wrapped both of his hands around it while thinking. When he spoke, he utterly failed at diplomacy. “I can’t show favoritism, Atiana. More important, I won’t help you expand your borders.”

She pulled her hand away and stepped back. She took a moment to get her thoughts together, then came right back at him. “You are not alone, Sky Lord. You will not free us of the demons by yourself. You have to lead all of us, including me.” She stepped back up to him, their virtual bodies nearly touching, her chin lifted toward his. “Of course you have to show favoritism—you do it by favoring everyone. As for me expanding my borders, consider this: you could walk unopposed through my front gates and take over my kingdom. You haven’t, not yet, but I have no way of stopping you.”

“I told you . . .”

“I know what you told me. You gave me your word. Well, here’s my word, sir: I have no plan to expand my borders. I can’t tell you those borders won’t expand, and I can’t tell you they won’t shrink, there are just too many uncertainties right now. But because we’re in this dream, you know I am who I say I am and that I speak true. My only purpose is to rid my world of gleasons.”

Sir Turmae stepped up to her virtual persona and went to a knee. “You make an old man proud,” he said.

“Stand,” she commanded. “There will be none of that while we have work to do.”

* * * * *

Later, when it was time to end the dream, Turmae could wait no longer as he stared down at his world. He asked Galborae, “How do the people on the bottom keep from falling off?”

Galborae shook his head in shared fellowship and grumbled
,
“I don’t know.”

Late that night Major Lebac shook Havlock awake from a sound sleep. “Your plan to attract gleasons to the caravan was more successful than you intended,” he said. “They’re moving in on Tricor from all directions. Lots of them.”

“Uh, how many is a lot?” Havlock asked as he sat up.

“Our counts are not all that accurate, but if they organize and band together the way I think they will, it could be over a thousand.”

Havlock came fully awake. “A thousand! We can’t fight a thousand gleasons, Zac.”

“I know. Our intel suggests they don’t organize, that they’re not that smart, so I might be reading more into this than I should.”

Havlock closed his eyes and focused his thoughts, reviewing what he knew about gleasons. When he looked back to Lebac, he said, “Our intel comes from their attack against Brodor 2,000 years ago and from ships blockading their planet since then. How much can you learn from a ship in orbit? How much do we really know about them?”

“We sent down drones. We studied their language and picked up some clues to their social structure.”

“A social structure that was ready to implode. They had no natural prey left and had resorted to killing and eating themselves. What have they become now that they have a whole world of prey and no natural enemies?”

Lebac stared at him as Havlock got up and dressed. “What if we leave Tricor? A caravan might pull them away from the city.”

“It might. I have a gut feeling they know who we are and where we come from. My guess is that it’s us they’re after, not the locals. But . . . a caravan wouldn’t stand a chance against a thousand gleasons.”

“We can’t just pick up and leave the planet. That won’t solve Tranxte’s problems either.” Lebac ran a hand through his hair. “I’m only guessing at all this, and I don’t have any good suggestions yet. We need to put our heads together.”

“Not just ours,” Havlock replied. “The locals deserve a say in this.”

* * * * *

He and Lebac waited outside the operations center on the transporter. When Galborae, Atiana, and Turmae arrived, Havlock pulled all of them into an adjacent conference room and introduced Major Lebac who would brief them. None of them sat—this would not be a long meeting.

Lebac held nothing back, even making it clear that the gleasons were probably coming after marines, not the people of Tricor. When he was done, everyone’s eyes went to Atiana.

She did not miss the implications and turned away from them deep in thought. She called Turmae to join her across the room. The two of them held a long discussion, then returned. Havlock was the primary focus of her words.

“In the dream yesterday, we discussed what the gleasons would do if you attacked all of them at once. We decided they would rise up and fight to the very end. Tell me—is what they’ve done to my people any different? They’ve holed us up inside our walls, we’re starving, we’re dying of disease, and they take small numbers of us every day at their leisure. We can’t continue like this. It’s our backs that are up against the wall.”

In a lower voice, she said, “I can wish you’d led them to some other kingdom, but you didn’t. You brought them to me. I will fight.”

Silence descended on the room, a long silence. Havlock and Galborae’s eyes met, Galborae’s eyes full of pride for his queen. Too, Havlock sensed a deep foreboding of what was to come in Galborae’s eyes.

Havlock broke the silence. “I’d like all of you to join me in my operations center. It will seem strange to you, very strange, but if you can get past the strangeness, you will come away with a clearer view of what we’re up against. It will help us formulate a plan.”

He led them into a weirdly dark room that was lit only by bright blue lines of light in the air and from the light coming from workstations scattered around the room. He walked them farther into the room until they stood close to the blue lines of light. He gave them time to look, then held a hand out to Lebac.

Lebac lifted an arm and traced some of those lines of light with a finger. “This is your land, all of it surrounded by water. We call it a continent.” When he believed they understood the picture, he reached out with both hands toward the lines, then spread his arms several times. The view expanded until only Atiana’s province showed, then he repeated the process until a detailed presentation of Tricor was all that showed. When he saw that they understood the picture, if not the technology, he moved his arms and brought the display back out a little.

He spoke a command, and tiny white dots appeared, lots of them. “The white dots are life-forms,” he said. “Each of them represents a living being.” He issued another command and tiny arrows extended from many of the white dots. “The arrows indicate direction of movement of the life-forms. Many of them, maybe most of them, are animals. If there’s no arrow, the animal is not moving.”

He issued another command and many of the white dots dropped from the display. “The life-forms that remain all had arrows pointed toward Tricor,” he said.

The picture spoke for itself. Lots and lots of life-forms were moving toward Tricor.

“This represents what’s happening right now. I’m going to move the positions of the life-forms ahead three days in the direction of their arrows. It will be a close approximation of the situation three days from now.”

He spoke another command and the presentation reset itself. Tricor was, essentially, surrounded by an irregularly shaped mass of white dots. He gave them a moment, then reached out and pushed his arms wide, moving the display closer until only Tricor and its immediate surroundings showed.

He did not need to speak. Even Galborae, who did not understand the concept of thousands, understood the concept of many and many.

Captain M’Kind came from behind a console and stepped up to the display beside Lebac. His upper hands stopped their preening. “A battle of this scale against the gleasons was never a part of our assignment. Against most other armies I’d look forward to the challenge, but against gleasons I cannot say we will prevail. If we do fight, the cost to Tricor will be enormous. We’re prepared to withdraw if that is your decision.”

Atiana lifted wide eyes to Turmae, one of the few times any of them had seen her truly uncertain. “Captain?”

Turmae turned and studied the display while he considered. When he turned back to her, he spoke with confidence. “The facts have not changed even if our understanding of them has. Our people will not survive two more years under present conditions. If we have to fight, we should fight while we’re strong.”

She stared long at him. Havlock felt for her, understanding that while the decisions he made would be born by soldiers whose job was to fight, her decision would commit the whole of her people—soldiers, women, children, the old, and the infirm.

She considered for a long time, but in the end she nodded her head almost imperceptibly.

Turmae bowed in acknowledgement, then turned to Havlock. “You won’t abandon us, that much I know. What do you need from me?”

“I need your knowledge. None of us has ever attempted to defend a castle.”

Turmae rubbed a hand across his beard. “In truth, neither have I. The fortress of Tricor was built generations ago, before we united the five kingdoms. It occupied the top of the promontory overlooking the river with an extension that ran down to the river. More recent generations settled outside the wall, forcing us to build another very long wall. With the peace that came after unification, our population increased dramatically, resulting in settlements outside even that wall. When the gleasons came, we brought everyone back inside, but we’re so overcrowded that normal siege tactics will not work.”

M’Kind stepped forward. “What are those tactics?”

Turmae looked at the schematic and lifted both hands to it as he had seen Lebac do. He experimented with manipulating the display for a bit, then settled on a view that showed only the city. Atiana looked at him with the lifted eyebrows of amazement.

“Castle defense depends on several critical things: strong walls, lines of fire, and methods of retreat and holding. The outer wall, we call it a curtain wall, is made of stone. It is formidable and it will not burn, but it is not as strong or as high as our next level of defense which is a very high wall made of cut stones that fit tightly together. This second wall was the original outer wall and is now called the inner wall. It surrounds the armory, the stables and granaries, the cathedral, government offices, the gardens, and the keep where the queen lives and conducts her daily audiences. The keep itself—you’ve been referring to it as a castle—is a third defensive level and is virtually impregnable, but if invaders ever make it that far, the city is lost and we would likely surrender.”

He turned to them to see if there were any questions. There were not, so he turned back to the display and traced each wall with a finger. “Notice the walls are thicker at the bottom. It not only strengthens them, it allows archers to fire without leaning out and exposing themselves too much. Notice also that the inner wall is not only higher than the outer, curtain wall, it is higher up the hill. The wall of the keep is higher yet. Under ideal circumstances, archers at each higher level would have lines of fire to the next level below them. Unfortunately, with peace came a relaxation of the rules. Homes and businesses and streets have claimed every available parcel between the walls, and those lines of fire are obstructed. Still, there are no parts of the walls that attackers can climb with impunity.

“Attackers have to cross the clear area outside the curtain wall, a dangerous and demoralizing crossing. Many die. The survivors reach the curtain wall and have to get over it, a process during which more die. If they breach the curtain wall, they’ve been seriously weakened.”

He turned back to them, saying, “The curtain wall was never designed to stop a determined army. It is far too long to defend with the few hundred soldiers we have. It’s purpose is only to slow down and reduce the enemy force, demoralizing them in the process. If an enemy makes it over the curtain wall, we retreat one level to the inner wall. We are not willing to forfeit this inner wall. We defend it at all costs because we’ve moved the women and children inside its walls, and it holds our siege supplies.”

“How do you defend this inner wall?” M’Kind asked.

Turmae stared at him while he considered his answer. In the end, he said, “Keep in mind that I have never had to do it, though I have practiced it. The wall itself is formidable. We would use arrows, hot water, hot burning oil, rocks, and anything else we can drop on them. As they near the top, spears, swords, axes, and knives.”

He turned back to the display and started again at the beginning. “Invading armies would bring ladders. I don’t believe the gleasons have ladders, but I’ve personally fought them inside the curtain wall, so I know they can climb the wall without them. We still have a good cleared area outside that wall, and you’ve shown me you can make the gleasons visible with your weapons. If you can make them visible to us, we can do a lot of damage. Still, with the numbers you’re suggesting, they will definitely get over the curtain wall. When they do, our archers will not have clear fields of fire because we’ve allowed construction between the two walls.”

He paused, then added, “There’s another problem,” he said, looking at Atiana. “We have far too many people and animals to bring into the inner fortress. It simply won’t hold them all.”

M’Kind’s upper hands were working overtime on his whiskers as he listened to every word. Now they moved to his antennae, removing old smells to allow room for new ones. That did not stop him from talking.

“What if I evacuate them?” he asked thoughtfully.

Surprised looks went around the room. Atiana was the first to speak. “My people? Is that possible?”

“How many?” M’Kind asked.

She lifted her eyes to the ceiling in thought, then said, “Three thousand if we do not include Turmae’s fighters.”

M’Kind’s hands stopped for a moment, then resumed their preening. “I can house some of them temporarily. It might be standing room only. What will happen when they see us nonhumans?”

Atiana brought a hand to her mouth and turned away, then she turned back. “Better frightened than dead at the hands of gleasons.”

Havlock spoke up. “I don’t think they’ll go willingly into the ship.”

M’Kind’s preening stopped again while he considered. “I’ll have to check dimensions, but I believe I can fit one of those spires above the castle into a shuttle attachment point on the bottom of the ship. I’ll have to trim the top of the spire, maybe remove the whole top. If I did it at night, people might not know they’re stepping into a sky ship.”

Havlock looked to Atiana, but she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Just do whatever it takes. You have my permission to damage the spire.”

M’Kind nodded and spoke to Turmae. “How many men do you have?”

“Roughly one hundred knights, an equal number of archers, and two hundred foot-men. I’ve drafted another thousand civilians to help patrol the walls, but they’re only minimally trained.”

“Fourteen hundred to protect the whole city?” Havlock asked in surprise.

Turmae frowned. “Remember, we’ve been at peace. Most of my men were away when the gleasons came. They didn’t all make it back to Tricor, and many have died since then.”