Star Trek: The Hand of Kahless (44 page)

Picard breathed in the cold air and observed the contingent of Klingons on the next plateau, perhaps a hundred meters below him and his companions.

Their dark hair was drawn back and tied into ponytails, in the manner of Worf’s. In the flat, gray light of predawn, their white
mok’bara
garb looked strangely serene against the coarse, black rock and the omnipresent tufts of hardy, red
en’chula
grass.

Of course, the Klingons themselves were anything but serene. Focused, yes. Entranced, perhaps. But serene? Even in the practice of so demanding a discipline, Klingon serenity was a contradiction in terms.

Anyone who doubted that had only to witness what the captain was witnessing—the ferocity with which these practitioners assailed one another, launching kick after deadly kick and blow after crushing blow, and following each with a guttural shout of exultation. Fortunately for them, none of these assaults found their targets—for as skilled as they were at attacks, they were just as skilled at avoiding them.

It was a mesmerizing spectacle, the captain mused. Like a spider of many parts weaving a continuous, flashing web. Or a particularly vicious species of bird writhing in a torturous form of flight, the reasons for which were lost in its genetic past.

Picard had seen Worf teach the
mok’bara
exercises to a dedicated few on the
Enterprise,
Beverly and Deanna among them. However, those maneuvers were to these as a jog in the woods was to the Academy marathon. Neither Beverly nor Deanna would have lasted more than a few brief seconds in so violent and rigorous a ritual.

“I am amused,” Kahless hissed.

He was careful not to speak so loudly that he’d draw the attention of the martial artists below—though with all the bellowing going on down there, such care seemed rather unnecessary.

“In my day, there was no such thing as this….” He turned to Worf. “What did you call it?”

The lieutenant scowled.
“Mok’bara,”
he replied.

“This
Mok’baaara,
” Kahless finished, butchering the word as if on purpose. He shook his head. “In my era, life itself contained all the exercise one would ever need. And if one still craved action at the end of the day, there was always the requisite afterdinner brawl.”

Worf harrumphed. Clearly, thought Picard, his officer didn’t appreciate the clone’s disparagements.

“The ritual provides more than exercise,” the lieutenant explained. “It helps one to set aside distractions—to concentrate on the advancement of one’s spirit.”

Kahless clapped him affectionately on the back. “I don’t mean to offend anyone, Worf—and certainly not my closest companions. If you want to perform pantomimes in your night clothes, I have no objections.”

Kurn looked at the clone. “With all due respect, Kahless, I can see why you were never revered as a diplomat.”

“To
Gre’thor
with diplomats,” Kahless spat—
Gre’thor
being the Klingon equivalent of Hell.

After some of his experiences with diplomatic envoys, the captain was inclined to agree. But, not for the first time since he’d embarked on this mission, he held his tongue.

Abruptly, he noticed the first brazen rays of the sun sneaking over the cliffs to his right. He turned to Worf, who’d mentioned earlier that the ritual would end when dawn touched the plateau.

“Lieutenant?” said Picard, by way of a reminder.

Worf glanced at the cliffs and nodded. “We should start down now.”

Without further ceremony, he retreated from the edge of their rocky plateau and made his way across it toward a steep, winding path. By following this path, the captain knew, they would end up exactly where they wanted to be—and with any luck, see just whom they wished to see.

Their descent took them around a natural column of crags and boulders, one of many that seemed to punctuate the landscape. Though Picard’s interests leaned more toward archaeology than geology, he resolved to learn someday what sort of forces created these structures.

As the sky continued to lighten above them, they came to the end of the path and gathered in a hollow. By peering through a cleft in the rocks, they could see the slope just below the
mok’bara
practitioners’ plateau. To be sure, it was a gentler way down than the one they’d just taken—but more importantly, it narrowed to a point right near the cleft.

They’d barely arrived when the martial artists began to descend. It was remarkable how calm they seemed, after the effort they’d put into their ritual just a few moments earlier.

The Klingons were conversing quietly, nodding, even smiling at one another. It seemed to the captain they’d come from a sewing bee instead of a potentially lethal combat.

“Which one is Godar?” Kahless asked softly.

“He is the last of them,” Kurn replied. “As always. You see him? The tall, wizened-looking one with the simple chin-beard?”

“Ah, that one,” said Kahless, craning his head to get a better angle. “And you believe he can be trusted?”

Worf s brother grunted. “I believe so, yes.”

“You seem to trust a great many people,” the clone commented.

“Like you,” Kurn told him, “I have no choice.”

In moments, most of the
mok’bara
practitioners had passed the cleft on their way down from the plateau. None of them seemed to notice Picard and his companions. But after what had happened in Tolar’tu, that was little assurance in the captain’s eyes.

As Kurn had indicated, Godar was the last of them. He too appeared unaware of the quartet that had traveled so far to speak with him. That is, until Kurn croaked his name.

At first, the man seemed confused as to who might have called him. Then he happened to glance in the direction of their hiding place.

Under similar circumstances,
Picard thought,
he himself might have cried out in surprise—or bolted, fearing an ambush.
But Godar did neither of these things. Still invigorated by his exercises, he simply altered his stance a bit, ready to take on whatever awaited him.

“Who is it?” he rasped, darting a sideways look at his fellow practitioners, who seemed not to have missed him—at least not yet. “Speak quickly—and give me a reason not to warn the others.”

“It’s me,” Worf’s brother whispered. “It’s Kurn, son of Mogh.”

Immediately, Godar’s expression changed. He became more curious than wary. “Come forward, so I can see it is really you,” he demanded.

Worf’s brother complied with Godar’s wishes. As the hollow filled with sunlight, the man saw the truth of the matter—and grinned.

“Kurn,” he said. “You Miravian slime devil!”

Reaching in, he grasped Kurn’s arm in a handclasp reserved for brothers and close allies. “What in the name of
Fek’lhr
are you doing on Ter’jas Mor?” He squinted. “And who the blazes is in there with you?”

Kurn moved aside, so the older man could get a better look into the hollow. “You will find,” he explained, “that I travel in unusual company.”

As Godar spotted Worf and then Picard, his elderly brow creased with curiosity. And when he realized that Kahless was with them, the crease became a deep, dark furrow in the center of his forehead.

“Unusual company indeed,” the man murmured. He turned back to Kurn. “And how does this involve
me,
son of Mogh?”

As he did at Majjas’s house, Worf’s brother explained what was going on. However, he left out Majjas’s name, referring to the blind man simply as “an expert in armaments.”

The
mok’bara
practitioner nodded. “And since I was once the master of the defense armory on this world, you believe I can tell you who might have stolen the bomb.”

Worf shrugged. “If anyone knows the people who worked there, it would be you. If you were pressed to come up with a name…”

Godar didn’t respond right away. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, he came up with not one name but two—and a bit of information to back up his suspicions.

“Mind you,” he told them, “I don’t know for a fact that they’re guilty. I’m only guessing.”

Kurn snorted. “A guess from Godar, son of Gudag, is better than a certainty from anyone else. I thank you, my friend—and I trust you will keep the matter of our survival a secret.”

The
mok’bara
practitioner laughed softly. “I haven’t lived
this
long by betraying my friends, Kurn. Your secret is safe with me.” He gazed downslope again. “But if I don’t hurry, my companions will wonder what kept me so long. Follow the path of honor, Son of Mogh.”

And with that, he was gone. Picard looked at Kurn. “I assume we’ll be paying our bombing suspects a visit.”

Kurn nodded. “You assume correctly.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” asked Kahless.

“We’re not,” Worf’s brother replied.

Pulling up his sleeve to expose the remote control band on his forearm, he tapped in the necessary information. Then he activated the link to his vessel’s transporter system.

The captain felt a brief thrill, something like a low-voltage electrical current, running through him—the earmark of Klingon transporter technology. A moment later, he was back on Kurn’s ship—though with what they knew now, he was certain he wouldn’t stay there very long.

Kahless looked at all those who had assembled in the village of T’chariv, along the edge of the northern forests. His own men were only a small part of the crowd that huddled under a gray sky, surrounded by low wooden houses and a flimsy-looking barricade.

Last of all, the outlaw glanced at Edronh, the man he had fought over the
minn’hor
herd nearly a year ago. Edronh nodded, and Kahless looked back at the funeral pyre that stood behind him.

Torch in hand, he approached the pyre, with its burden of half a dozen corpses. The wind whistled in his ears, whispering things he didn’t want to hear or know about.

Touching his torch to the kindling beneath the wooden platform, he waited until the fire caught. Then he watched as logs were placed on the burning branches, feeding the flames until they enveloped the bodies above. Finally, assured that all was as it should be, he withdrew to stand by Edronh.

As the fire danced around the pyre, Kahless looked deep into the outlaw’s eyes. He saw the sort of agony there that he himself had known. The kind of torment only the loss of a loved one may bring.

He wanted desperately to look away. But he couldn’t, not ever again. He could ignore the wind, but not what he saw in a man like Edronh.

If he was to lead a rebellion as so many wished him to, he would have to understand their pain. He would have to distill it, like bloodwine. And he would have to give all of Molor’s people a taste, so they would know what they were fighting for.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Morath staring at him, silently keeping him to his promise. But Kahless no longer fomented rebellion for Morath’s sake alone.

Now he did it for himself as well—and for Kellein. He had discovered it was the only thing that made his heart stop hurting for her, the only balm that worked for him.

Had he been the one to die instead of Kellein, she would have made the rest of her life a tribute to him. She would have turned her sorrow and her anger into something useful—and deadly.

Could he do any less?

“Rannuf,” Edronh whispered, the flames reflected in his eyes as they picked at his child’s bones. His wife moved closer to him, to give comfort and to take some. “My son,” he said, “my strong, brave son.”

Kahless nodded as a bone popped and sparks flew, rising like a swarm of fiery insects among the twists of smoke. “Rannuf,” he echoed.

Edronh turned to him. “You knew him, my friend. He laid his sword before you, that day in the woods. You saw his courage, his manliness.”

I saw how young he was,
Kahless thought.
How excessive in his eagerness.
But he didn’t mention that.

“Rannuf was a warrior,” he said. “He died defending his people against the depravities of Molor.”

That much was true. The tyrant must have gotten wind of the things Edronh was saying about him. And though Edronh and his men were outlaws, every outlaw had kin somewhere. Once Molor had determined where that somewhere was, the rest was simple.

He had sent his soldiers to T’chariv with fire and sword, just as he had once sent Kahless himself. Unfortunately for Rannuf, he had been home at the time, visiting his mother and his younger brother. Seeing what the tyrant’s men intended, he had met them blow for blow.

But the soldiers were more numerous than the village’s defenders and had killed them to a man—then lopped off their heads for good measure. The only good fortune was that the soldiers had spared the village itself, their point having been made.

Do not think to defy your lord Molor, they had said—if not with their tongues, then with their sharp-edged swords. After all, no one can hope to stand against him.

In the last half-year, that message had been carved like a bloodeagle from one end of the tyrant’s domain to the other. Vathraq’s village had only been the beginning. Nor would T’chariv be the end.

Kahless looked at Edronh. “It would be a shame,” he said, “if Rannuf were to go unavenged.”

The other man bit his lip. Clearly, he wasn’t as enthusiastic about revolution as he had been.

Until now, Edronh had thought himself too far north to feel Molor’s sting. To his everlasting regret, he had learned that was not so. Having seen Rannuf’s mangled body, having lifted it in pieces onto the pyre, he had become wary.

But if he was to have a hope of toppling the tyrant, Kahless needed men like Edronh. Men who could not only fight, but spread word of their struggle to others.

“I had a lover,” he told Edronh, plumbing the depths of his own sorrow. “We were betrothed before you and I met. But before I could return to her, Molor crushed her village and everyone in it.”

The other man looked at him. “The tyrant is everywhere.”

Kahless grunted. “Because we allow him to be everywhere. Because we sit in our own separate hideaways and wait for him to bring us misery.”

Edronh’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

“Only this,” said Kahless. “That it is not enough to speak of rebellion, as we have done in the past. It is time we let our swords do our speaking for us. Together, as one army, we can show Molor what misery truly is. And in time, we can destroy him as surely as he destroyed Rannuf.”

Edronh seemed to be mulling it over. After a while, he spoke in a voice thick with emotion.

“I have only one other son, my friend. I could not bear to lose him as I lost Rannuf.”

Kahless eyed him sternly. Perhaps it was not enough to distill the pain of Molor’s victims. Perhaps he needed something more.

And instinctively, he seemed to know what that something would be.

“Then you will lose more than your sons,” he told Edronh. “You will lose everything.”

Edronh shook his head. “Everything?” he echoed.

“Everything that matters,” the outlaw explained. “The day we met, Edronh—you remember it?”

The other man said he did. “As if it were yesterday.”

“You spoke to me of honor that day—the honor a warrior may accord another warrior, whom he has come to respect. But there is another kind of honor, my friend. It is the kind a man must seek in himself—a love of virtue he must not abandon, no matter the consequences—or else admit to the world he is less than a man.”

Edronh’s features hardened, as if he had been challenged. “I am a man, Kahless. I have never been anything less.”

“Then fight,” the outlaw spat. “Fight for your honor, your dignity. Fight to make this land free of Molor’s tyranny.”

Edronh grunted. “Brave words, Kahless. But I fear to take part in a halfhearted venture—one which would spur Molor to even greater atrocities.”

The outlaw nodded. “I understand. And I swear to you, we will finish what we start, or I am not the son of Kanjis. I will not lay down my sword until the tyrant is dead—or
I
am.”

Edronh measured the size of Kahless’s conviction—and found it sufficient. He clapped his friend on the shoulder.

“I will not lay down my sword either, then,” he promised. “From this day on, I fight at your side. And so do all those who ride with me.”

Kahless smiled. “I want more than that, Edronh. I want you and your men to go out as messengers—to speak with everyone you know, every hearth you can find. Tell them I am gathering an army to march against Molor in the tyrant’s own stronghold. Tell them I am doing this for the sake of their honor.” His smile widened. “And tell them they will never have a chance like this again.”

Edronh smiled too, though the flames of the funeral pyre turned his eyes to molten gold. “I will do it. You have my word.”

Kahless could almost hear the pounding of the blacksmith’s hammer as he forged the first link in his chain of rebellion. But it was only one link, he had to remind himself. He would need an entire chain before he could challenge the likes of Molor.

Feeling someone’s stare on the back of his neck, he turned. Morath was looking at him. The younger man seemed pleased.

Kahless nodded at him. It had begun.