Conqueror

'— would have repeated the same failure on a larger scale.' He sighed wearily. 'The fact of the matter is, I was relying too much on the militia being disorganized by the town meeting. Maybe a lot of them wanted to open the gates, but they didn't want our men coming over the wall with blood in their eyes, not with their families behind it.

'And Strezman was waiting for us-a force ready to sally and another in central reserve to punch back anyone who got to the top of the walls. High bloody Colonel bloody Strezman is just too good to bamboozle easily-we've been fighting dumb barbs too long. I underestimated him.'

He quirked a smile and lit two cigarettes, handing the other to Menyez. 'If it's any consolation'-which it wasn't, he knew-'the force that sallied against our flank got cut up pretty badly before they made it back to cover. Good work, by the way, Gerrin.'

Staenbridge shrugged; his eyes were red-rimmed by exhaustion as well. 'Standard little affray,' he said. 'Incidentally, I was right back on Stern Isle. Their regular army is a different proposition from the landholders' retainers. A bit slow to deploy, though, too reluctant to get out of the saddle.'

'As to what we do next-' Raj began.

observe, Center said.

* * *

This time the vision was of Lion City before the Fall. He hadn't known there was a city here back that far. Low colorful buildings, a few towers, streets of greenery with vehicles floating through on air cushions. More such advanced craft at the docks behind the same adamantine breakwaters as today, and others that had sails in bright primary shades and seemed to serve no purpose but pleasure. Yet there were so many of them, as if the city held hundreds of nobles wealthy enough to maintain a yacht. People strolling along the tree- shaded avenues, richly dressed in alien fashions, all healthy and well-fed and unconcerned, none bearing arms save a hunter with the head of a carnosauroid floating behind him on a robot platform. People bathing nude in the harbor itself, away from the docks, in water that was crystal clear and free of downdraggers. How could harbor water not stink and attract scavengers?

The view stabilized overhead and then flashed to a schematic of the city's hydraulic system. Water flowed in through pipes from the sea, flashed into vapor in a processing plant, flowed out through distributor pipes to every house, however humble. Even while he focused his attention on the overall view Raj marvelled at that. The lowliest peasant with hot and cold water running in any room he chose, like a great lord! With no need to send his wife to the public fountain for water or with the slops bucket to a sewer inlet-and only wealthy, civilized towns in these Fallen times had even so much. Waste water collected in a giant pipe that struck north to a mysterious factory that seemed to do nothing but sterilize the water, even though the whole ocean was nearby for dumping.

The Fall came. Most of the bright airy structures fell swiftly, to fire or hammered apart as salvage; they were uninhabitable for folk with nothing but fire to heat with, and they had been built of perishable materials. For generations only a small farming and fishing village stood on the site of Lion City. Rich land and a fine self-scouring harbor with a lighthouse brought growth. When men were numerous enough for their wastes to be a problem, a long ditch was built and connected to the storm-drains that flowed at low tide through the adamantine seawall; rainwater flushed it, now and then. A later generation covered the ditch with brick arches and built drains down individual streets connecting to it. The old sewer outlet was forgotten, deep underground. When men built the city wall, they built it over the pipe, to defend a smaller, more densely packed settlement.

A final vision: the outlet pipe ending in a gully north of the town, with a projection of Raj standing next to it.

* * *

1.5 meters in diameter, Center said.

For a moment all Raj could feel was incandescent anger. You let my men die when there was a better way? he thought. Not even the Spirit-

i am not god, Center said. the pipe may be blocked, is probably blocked where the weight of the wall rests on it. or the inlet may not connect to the surface within lion city.in any case, 'supernatural' interventions such as this increase the amount of noise in the system and reduce the reliability of my predictive function. nor did i select you to be the puppet of my tactical direction.

'Raj?' Suzette said with concern.

He shook back to himself. The Companions were used to his moments of introspection, but not to one accompanied by the expression he could still feel twisting his face.

furthermore the attention of the garrison will now be firmly riveted on the walls.

Shut-up, he thought savagely. Perhaps that was reckless disrespect to an angel, but at the moment he didn't much care.

Raj looked up at the walls of Lion City. 'They're really going to regret burning my men,' he said softly.

Jorg Menyez was normally a mild and considerate man. At that moment his battered face resembled the surface of an upraised maul-also battered, but poised to smash anything in its path, stone and iron included. It matched his commander's expression quite closely.

'Oh, my oath, yes,' Gerrin Staenbridge, almost whispering. A rustle of carnivore alertness went through the circle of commanders.

'Ehwardo,' Raj began. 'Move the cavalry around outside the walls-make it look as if you're setting up dispersed camps.' An essential step in keeping dogs healthy over a long stay in a confined spot. 'Jorg, starting at dawn, give the best imitation you can of a man starting massive siege works; parallels, the whole show.'

'I gather it's a ruse, Whitehall?' Gerrin Staenbridge said.

'Correct. The rest of you are to prepare for a general assault-if and only if something I. . have in mind succeeds. Colonel Dinnalsyn, get those damned armored cars ready, too. If you'll excuse me, Messers? And Gerrin,' he went on, 'send me M'lewis.'

* * *

Antin M'lewis usually blessed the fate that had thrown him into Raj Whitehall's path. Since then life had never been boring, and it had been lucrative-if not beyond his wildest dreams, then beyond all reasonable expectation. Particularly after he happened to be one of the two men with Raj when he put down the botched coup attempt that used Des Poplanich as its front-man. Governor Barholm had been hysterical when he promised to make the two Companions present the richest lords in the Civil Government if they saved him. He'd remembered enough afterwards to translate one Antin M'lewis, free commoner and soldier of watch-stander rank, into the Messer class and to deed him a thousand hectares of land-and not in stony, desolate Descott County, either. Good fat riverside fields, near the capital. Yes, usually he blessed the day then-Major Raj Whitehall had hauled him up on charges for stealing a shoat.

Then again, there were times when he wished he'd let the peons keep their damned pig.

The pipe was tall enough for him to stand in if he stooped a bit. The greasy-smooth material it was made of was like nothing he'd ever seen outside a shrine, and it led downward into the earth-into the Starless Dark, the freezing hell of the orthodox. Where the Spirit of Man of the Stars cast the unregenerate souls not worthy even of lowly rebirth, dumping their core programs into chaos.

Good thing me ma were a witch, he thought. This might be a real problem for a pious respectable yeoman, but everyone in the M'lewis family accounted themselves probably damned anyway and certainly hung if found out. So were the Forty Thieves, but even they looked queasy at the arguably supernatural and definitely menacing passageway into the earth.

They watched him silently as he stripped off his uniform jacket and boots; unlike most enlisted men, who preferred sleeveless vests of unbleached cotton beneath in summertime, he wore a shirt. Unlike most officers, his was dyed rusty black. Through the back of his belt he tucked a sheathed skinning knife, and tested that the wooden toggles of his garotte were ready to his hand for the quick snatch-and-toss. Then he tied a plain brown bandana over his hair and palmed mud over his cheeks.

'Yer nivver goin' t'leave yer gun, ser?' one of the men whispered.

It was the young recruit; M'lewis remembered him from the action on Stern Isle, where he'd wondered if he'd have a chance at the women in the refugee convoy.

'Son-' M'lewis began. Which was just possible; they were certainly cousins, and he'd been friendly with that branch of the family as a lad. '-whin yer sneakin', yer sneaks quiet.