Conqueror

chest.

The younger man stood in the saddle. 'Damn it, a lot of them are going to get away,' he said. The measured crash of volley-fire was coming from the direction of the bridge, and the slightly dulled sound of cannon firing case-shot at point-blank range.

Beside Raj, his bannerman stiffened slightly at the younger officer's tone. Clerett grew conscious of the stares.

'Sir,' he added.

Raj was looking in the same direction. The land on the other side of the river was flat drained fields for a thousand meters or so. Brigaderos were running all across it, those with the fastest dogs who'd been closest to the river. Bodies were floating down with the current, now. Not many who'd still been in the water or on the bridge when the troops arrived would make it over; as he watched a clump toppled back from the far bank.

'Oh, I don't think so, Major Clerett,' he said calmly. Horace crouched and he straddled the saddle.

Beyond the cleared fields was a forest of coppiced poplar trees, probably maintained as a fuel-source for the handicrafts and fireplaces of Pozadas. The glint of metal was just perceptible as men rode out of the woods, pausing to dress ranks. The trumpets were unheard at this distance, but the way the swords flashed free in unison and the men swept forward was unmistakable.

Clerett looked at him blank-faced. A murmur went through the men nearest, and whispers as they repeated the conversation to those further away.

'You expected the ambush, sir?' he said carefully.

'Not specifically. I thought we could use some help with all that livestock. . and that everything had been too easy.'

'If you'd told me, sir, we might have arranged a more. . elegant solution without extra troops.'

Raj sighed, looking around. The civilians were still indoors, apart from a few who'd tried to follow the Brigaderos over the river, and died with them. The fires were burning sullenly, smoke pillaring straight up in the calm chill air. He reached into a saddle bag and pulled out a walnut, one of a bag Suzette had tucked in for him.

'Major,' he said, 'this is an elegant way to crack a walnut.'

He squeezed one carefully between thumb and forefinger of his sword hand. The shells parted, and he extracted the meat and flicked it into his mouth.

'And it can work. However.' He put another in the palm of his left hand, raised his right fist and smashed it down. The nut shattered, and he shook the pieces to the ground. 'This way always works. Very few operations have ever failed because too many troops were used. Use whatever you've got.'

Cabot nodded thoughtfully. 'What are your orders, sir?' he asked. 'Concerning the town, that is.'

The wounded were being laid out on the ground before the town hall. Raj nodded toward them.

'We'll bivouac here tonight, your battalion and the Slashers,' he said. 'Get the fires out or under control-roust out the civilians to help with that. Round up the stock we were driving. Send out scouting parties to see none of the enemy escaped or are lying up around here; no prisoners, by the way.'

'The town and the civilians?' Clerett asked.

Raj looked around; Pozadas had yielded on terms and then violated them.

'We'll loot it bare of everything useful, and burn it down when we leave tomorrow. Shoot all the adult males, turn the women over to the troops, then march them and the children back to the column for sale.'

Clerett nodded. 'Altogether a small but tidy victory, sir,' he said.

'Is it, Major?' Raj asked somberly. 'We lost what. . twenty men today?'

The Governor's nephew raised his brows. 'We killed hundreds,' he said. 'And we hold the field.'

'Major, the Brigade can replace hundreds more easily than I can replace twenty veteran cavalry troopers. If all the barbarians stood in a line for my men to cut their throats, they could slash until their arms fell off with weariness and there would still be Brigaderos. Yes, we hold the field-until we leave. With less than twenty thousand men, I'd be hard-pressed to garrison a single district, much less the Western Territories as a whole. We can only conquer if men obey us without a detachment pointing guns every moment.'

Raj tapped his knuckles thoughtfully on the pommel of his saddle. 'It isn't enough to defeat them in battle. I have to shatter them-break their will to resist, make them give up. They won't surrender to a few battalions of cavalry. So we have to find something they can surrender to.'

He gathered his reins. 'I'm heading back to the main column. Follow as quickly as possible.'

* * *

Abdullah al'-Aziz spread the carpet with a flourish.

'Finest Al Kebir work, my lady,' he said, in Spanjol with a careful leavening of Arabic accent-it was his native tongue, but he could speak half a dozen with faultless purity. He was a slight olive-skinned man, like millions around the Midworld Sea, or further east in the Colonial dominions. Dress and more subtle clues both marked him as a well-to-do Muslim trader of Al Kebir, and he could change the motions of hands and face and body as easily as the long tunic, baggy pantaloons and turban.

This morning room of the General's palace was warm with hangings and the log fire in one hearth, but the everlasting dank chill of a Carson Barracks winter still lingered in the mind, if nowhere else. Abdullah was dispelling a little of it with his goods. Bright carpets of thousand-knot silk and gold thread, velvets and torofib, spices and chocolate and lapis lazuli. Since the Zanj Wars, when Tewfik of Al Kebir broke the monopoly of the southern city- states, a few daring Colonial traders had made the year-long voyage around the Southern Continent to the Brigade-held ports of Tembarton and Rohka. If you survived the sea monsters and storms and the savages it could be very profitable. The Civil Government lay athwart the overland routes from the Colony, and its tariffs quintupled prices.

Marie Manfrond straightened in her chair. 'This is beautiful work,' she said, running a hand down a length of torofib embroidered with peacocks and prancing Afghan wolfhounds carrying men in turbans to the hunt.

'All of you,' she went on, 'leave me. Except you, Katrini.'

Several of the court matrons sniffed resentfully as they swept out; attendance on the General's Lady was a hereditary right of the spouses of certain high officers of state. Marie's cold gray gaze hurried them past the door. Men in Guard uniforms stood outside, ceremonial guards and real jailers. Abdullah looked aside at Katrini. She went to stand beside the door, in a position to give them a few seconds if someone burst through.

'Katrini's been with me since we were girls,' Marie said. 'I trust her with my life.'

Abdullah shrugged. 'Inshallah. You know, then, from whom I come?'

His long silk coat and jewel-clasped turban were perfectly authentic, made in Al Kebir as their appearance suggested.

'Raj Whitehall,' Marie said flatly. 'The Colonial traders don't come to Tembarton this time of year; the winds are wrong.'

'Ah, my lady is observant,' Abdullah said. Marie nodded; not one Brigade noble in a thousand would have known that.

'But I do not come from General Whitehall. . not directly. Rather from his wife, Lady Suzette. If Messer Raj's sword is the Companions who fight for him, she is his dagger, just as deadly.'

'What difference does it make?' Marie asked. 'Why shouldn't I turn you over to my husband's men immediately?'

Abdullah smiled at the implied threat, that he would be turned over later if not now. The subtlety was pleasing. He owed Suzette Whitehall his freedom and life and that of his family, but he served her most of all because it gave him full scope for his talents. He could retire on his savings if he wished, but life would be as savorless as meat without salt.

'Forgive me if I presume, my lady, but my lady Suzette has told me that your interests and those of General Ingreid are not. . how shall I say. . not always exactly the same.'

'That's no secret even in Carson Barracks,' Marie said. Not a month after the wedding, with a fading black eye imperfectly disguised with cosmetics. 'But Ingreid Manfrond is General, and my people are at war. Do you think I would betray the 591st Provisional Brigade and its heritage for my own spite?'

'Ah, no, by no means,' Abdullah said soothingly, spreading his hands with a charming gesture.