March To The Sea

closer to what we're familiar with,' she said, and he nodded.

'Your equipment is quite unusual,' was his only comment, then his gaze sharpened as he saw the bulging skins lashed atop the packbeasts. 'Are those sin-ta skins?' he asked in obvious surprise.

'Uh, yes. Or, at least, I imagine they are, although we call the beasts flar-ke, not sin-ta. We were attacked by a herd of them just up the valley.' O'Casey paused. 'I hope they weren't a . . . uh, protected herd.'

'Hardly,' Sen Kakai said, his eyes round as he noted the size and numbers of tuskhorns beside the skins. 'That herd had just moved into the area. It was one of the reasons I was patrolling up here. I'm sorry about your greeting, by the way. We've been having some problems lately.'

'Problems?' the chief of staff asked as they approached the command group. 'What sorts?'

'It's been hard, lately,' the guardsman replied. 'Very hard times.'

Eleanora thought about that as the introductions were made all around. She also thought about an ancient Chinese curse which she was beginning to think had been specifically created for Bravo Company. Even if it hadn't been, it was certainly an excellent fit, and speaking simply for herself, she was thoroughly tired of living 'in interesting times.'

* * *

The caravansary was set on the edge of the main market. The cries of the vendors carried over the walls of the large hotel and stable and all the way to the third-story room the command group occupied.

The open window looked out over the flat roofs of the city and the lake beyond. A constant wind blew from the lake and across the city, following the river that flowed down the slope to the distant jungles and carrying the scent of the spices for which the region was famous to the window.

The reason for Ran Tai's existence had become clear on the walk to the town—as clear as the broad, carefully cultivated fields of nearpeppers that spread in every direction. It turned out that the spice, an important component of many of the dishes that Matsugae fixed, could be raised only in high, dry environments. That made it extremely expensive on a planet whose sentient species required high humidity and temperatures, and its cultivation and preparation, along with a few other spices, was the basis of half of the region's income.

The other basis was mining. The mountains were a major source of gold, silver, and iron. There were also small concentrations of gems scattered through the hills around the city, most in alluvial deposits. The combination made Ran Tai a rich, if harsh, town.

But it was a town with a problem.

'Maybe there's been a change in the weather patterns,' O'Casey said, shaking her head. 'That's one of the few things I could think of that would explain invasions on the scale these people seem to be talking about.'

'We don't want to have another set-to with the Kranolta,' Roger said definitely.

'Oh, Satan, no,' Kosutic agreed, rubbing the still-fresh scars on her arm. 'I'd rather go toe-to-toe with a Saint strike force than face up to those Kranolta bastards again. The damned Saints at least know when they're beat.'

'Well, these aren't like Kranolta, exactly,' O'Casey told her. 'Or not like our Kranolta, anyway. The Kranolta were a fading force by the time we met them. From the description, these seem to be more like the Kranolta when they first swarmed over Voitan.'

'Oh, great!' Julian gave a slightly hysterical chuckle. 'New, fresh Kranolta instead of tired, worn-out Kranolta!'

'This group,' O'Casey went on, 'is apparently coming from the same hill country up on the edge of the northern plains that the Kranolta spread from, but the Kranolta found a gap in the mountain barrier over here, where it flattens out to the east.' She gestured at the low detail map, pointing at the far northern region of the huge continent they had been crossing and tracing the dividing mountain range Sen Kakai had called the Tarstens with a fingertip.

'These Boman are pretty much more of the same, but they seem to be distinct from them in several ways. The most obvious one, of course, is that they haven't found a way around the Tarstens— they seem to have hit the range and slid along it to the west, instead. They also seem to have started their migration somewhat later than the Kranolta, and their weaponry is significantly different. The Kranolta didn't have gunpowder, but at least some of these Boman use arquebuses, although I suppose they might have gotten them from trading with this area.

'Actually, the Boman—like the Kranolta—seem more like a loose confederation of tribes than anything we might call a unified force, and there appear to be varying levels of technology among different tribes. For example, the tribesmen who apparently act as the leading edge of their movement are considerably more primitively armed than what we might call the 'core' tribes who give their invasion its real weight, with traditional muscle-powered projectile weapons instead of firearms. You might think of them as, um . . . skirmishers, I suppose. Lightly armed and expendable, filtering forward like tentacles to feel out the local opposition and opportunities.'

'Great,' Pahner said with a dry chuckle. 'More Fuzzy-Wuzzies and their shovel-headed spears. So what's driving them? Why have they begun their invasion now? When we're passing through?'

'I can't tell you that,' the historian admitted, shaking her head. 'Certainly not with any degree of confidence. The motivations of barbarian expansions aren't always clear, but I wasn't joking when I said that there may have been a change of weather. On the other hand, it could be simply a matter of a particularly effective tribal leader looking to carve himself the local equivalent of a Mongol empire. Or it could be that a climate shift has permitted them a higher than normal reproductive rate, providing an expansion in military age manpower. Or it could be the converse—a weather shift which is putting a squeeze on their ability to feed their people where they are and fueling a survival-oriented migration.' She shrugged. 'Whatever's causing it, they're sweeping down through this region, crushing everything in their path and pushing other tribes ahead of them.'

'Which is why the guard was so nervous,' Roger said, taking a bite out of something the natives called a targhas and which seemed to fill the same niche the ubiquitous kate fruit had filled on the southern side of the Tarsten Mountains. The company had become very fond of the kate fruits, but the kiwi-dates seemed unknown in this region, as did dianda. Barleyrice, luckily, was common to both sides of the mountain range, but Roger already missed the kates. The targhas had a completely different taste and texture—more like a persimmon crossed with a hairy-skinned crab apple—and he wondered what the troops would dub this one. Persapples? Crabsimmons? Apsimons?

'They've probably got raiders coming up from the jungle as these new barbarians push in,' he continued, 'and eventually, the Boman themselves are liable to get down here, as well.'

'We need to resupply.' Pahner looked over at Poertena. 'Is that going to be a problem?'

'I been checkin' prices in tee market.' The armorer shook his head. 'We can get good prices for tee dianda. Goood prices. But tee barleyrice is all brought up from tee jungle.' He shook his head again. 'Food 'round here is expensive.'

'So we buy what we need to get to the jungles, then buy the rest down on the plains,' Pahner said, then paused as the armorer shook his head. 'No?'

'They harvests is po—messed up.' The Pinopan shrugged. 'Barleyrice is hard to find, even down on tee plain. We walkin' into another war, Cap'n. Food, it's gonna be hard to find.'

'Wonderful.' The captain sighed and looked at the ceiling. 'Just once, could something go right?' he asked God.

'If it did, you'd figure there was a catch,' Roger told him. 'Okay, so the bottom line is that we need more cash?'

'We could use it, yes, Sir,' the Pinopan said. 'Tee barleyrice is gonna be expensive, and t'at don't count tee fruit or spices.'

'I would like to get quite a bit of those,' Matsugae said. Roger's valet usually attended these meetings, partly to make sure that everyone had refreshments, but also as the expedition's head cook and true logistics manager. 'The nearpeppers in the markets around here are absolutely fabulous. Also, there are some other spices that I'd like to get a few dozen kilos of. I've already spotted some very good dishes that I want to try. And we should also think about hiring some camp help, even if they're not mahouts.'

'That takes cash, Matsugae,' Pahner said pessimistically. 'If we hadn't had to buy the flar- ta, it would be one thing. But the treasury's pretty bare. We have enough for now, but there's no