Warlord

'Well.' Barholm sat back, steepling his fingers.

Naxim's eyes closed, and his lips moved in prayer for a moment. 'Your Exaltedness, Sna Barbra-and the other border counties-finance from their own resources ten battalions, mounted and armed, the beacon system. .'

'And yet you come whining to Us for help at the least trouble.'

'My lord, we can deal with bandits, bedouin, even the amirs of the over-frontier, even the ghazi fanatics who come from all over the Colony to plague us. . but we cannot deal with the regular armies of the Settler!'

'Take your petition to the Chancellor,' Barholm continued coldly. 'If further detachments of regular troops must be sent to the southeast, then the tax remittances must be reconsidered or altered. There are many calls on Our resources.' Naxim bowed silently-

observe.

* * *

Naxim sat a lean-muzzled riding dog with a sand-colored coat, on a ridge overlooking a broad dry valley. Behind him were nearly a thousand troops; not regulars, but well-equipped and looking as tough as any Raj had seen, riding the same long-legged mongrels as the nobleman. Many wore turbans, with veils drawn across their faces, most were in long billowing robes, but a Star medallion gleamed on every chest, and there was a Hierarch Starpriest riding at Naxim's side. The snowpeaks of the Oxhead Mountains towered behind, floating on the horizon.

'Lord Naxim,' the priest was saying, pointing down the rocky slopes. 'You cannot let the infidel pass!' There was a growl from the men behind him, a clank and rustle of equipment, whines from the mounts.

An army was passing below, an army in scarlet and green, with the crescent banner of Islam before it. Ordered ranks of dog-dragoons under their regimental flags, infantry in solid blocks around the ox wagons of the supply column. Couriers dashed about on light agile Dobermans, and a galloper-battery of one-powder quick firing guns clattered along, drawn by Ridgebacks.

'I cannot stop them,' Naxim said, slowly beating one gloved hand on his thigh. 'They come twenty thousand strong.'

'You could harry them, ambush their foragers. .'

'As we have done before,' Naxim growled. He spat on the sandy ground. 'When we had support from the regulars. Where are they now? Drunk in barracks and pissing out our taxes! Should we leave our homes to be burnt and flee to the hills, when it will accomplish nothing?'

A rumble of assent came from the armed men. The priest bent his head and wept, clutching his medallion.

* * *

'The Ambassadors of the Free Canton of the Halvardi!'

Barholm crooked a finger; Raj leaned forward, whispering. 'Lord, they're the eastern mountain tribe, the one that controls the best passes through to the Skinners in the northern steppes. And for the Skinners to come south, southwest into the Peninsula, southeast into the Colony.'

The Vice-Governor nodded, and smiled affably at the dozen or so barbarians grouped before him. It was obvious even at a dozen meters that they greased their hair with butter, and never washed it; the hair was mostly blond, and both sexes wore it in long braids that fell to their waists on either side. They were dressed in jackets and pants of cowhide, adorned with horns and feathers and beads, draped about with enough edged weapons to arm a company, although they had been persuaded to leave the crossbows and halberds outside the Hall. Two brought a litter heaped with gifts forward; round yellow cheeses, wood carvings, small cedar kegs of beer, and some spectacularly beautiful fercat pelts, pure white and a meter long.

A shaman capered before them, waving a cross and ceremonial wooden house with a small jeweled bird within; he chanted, an eerie nasal kuku-kuku that sent not a few hands reaching for their amulets. The Supreme Hierarch Starpriest glared from the midst of a group of her ecclesiastical bureaucrats, but tradition and treaty kept foreigners not settled in the Civil Government outside the Church's jurisdiction. A hired diplomat paced beside the horn-helmed figure of the Halvardi chieftain, and he was a citizen, conspicuously holding a Star medallion to show he had not been tainted by his employers.

The Halvardi chief bowed slightly, raised both hands and began to chant: the hired diplomat translated line for line from Zvetchietz, the mountain tongue. To Raj it had a monotonous sameness, a hburni-burni-hrji sound endlessly repeated.

hburni-burni-hrji

'— Lizsauroid-Slayer Fren-kel, chief of the Houses of the Halvardi-'

hburni-burni-hrji

'-greets the Great Chief of the Rich Houses-'

An aside: 'Such is their rude way of acknowledging Your Exaltedness' hburni-burni- hrji

'— thanks him for the continued ah-' he glanced aside at the Halvardi, who evidently knew the Sponglish of civilization, or at least enough to keep a translation honest '-tribute for barring the passes against Skinner raiding parties-'

hburni-burni-hrji

'-and also for the additional bribes to allow the Skinners through to burn and pillage the Colonist territories around Lake Quofur-'

hburni-burni-hrji

'-which they have done. However-'

hburni-burni-hrji

'-Jamal, the Settler of the Colony-'

All the Halvardi spat at the name, and the watching ushers winced.

'— has sworn to send an army into the mountains-'

hburni-burni-hrji

'-kill or castrate every Halvardi of fighting age-'

hburni-burni-hrji

'— and seize the passes for Islam. Worse, he is sending-'

hburni-burni-hrji

'-his one-eyed general Tewfik to do it.'

hburni-burni-hrji

'In which case-'

hburni-burni-hrji

'— you had better do something yourself.'

Barholm frowned. 'You,' he said, addressing the diplomat. 'Are you empowered to negotiate?'

'Yes, Your Exaltedness, provided that the chief and his council agree and finalize it,' he said. A grimace. 'The shaman has to cut open a sheep, too.' He made a gesture that anyone around Court knew, thumb and two fingers rubbed together: bribe him.

'Take them over to the Minister of War,' Barholm said decisively. 'This is serious.' He signed to the usher.

'This audience is at an end!' the megaphone bellowed. 'All hail, his Exaltedness, Vice-Governor Barholm!'

* * *

'Be seated, gentlemen. My dear,' Barholm added to his wife Anne.

The conference room dated to the reign of Negrin III, three centuries before; the walls were pale stone, delicately painted with scenes of reeds and flying dactlysaroids and birds, daringly unreligious unless you counted the single obligatory star up in one corner. The conference table was a relic of preFall days, a long oval of plastic that no force known to modern man could scratch or scar. Raj seated himself at the end furthest from the Vice- Governor, nodding to Anne with a smile. She responded with one of her own, cool and enigmatic. Anne, Lady Clerett, was a tall woman, an inch or so taller than her husband, and from her figure she had kept up the dancer's training. In her thirties, but with an ageless look; long dark-red hair that fell to her waist, braided with silver, conservatively dressed in wide pleated trousers and tunic of maroon silk that set off the green of her eyes.