Haydn of Mars (26 page)

“I haven't had a drink of red wine or anything else since that day!”

I studied his scarred face, his empty eye socket, his missing ear.
 
“You are a good man, Xarr.”

“I am a man filled with shame!
 
I vowed to die for you, and on that day, because I was drunk, I slept through it all!
 
The battle, your disappearance, all of it!
 
Later I begged Kerl to let me go after you, but you were nowhere to be found!”

“Thank you, general.
 
I will need your help in the coming days.”

His tears had dried, and he knelt before me again, and bowed his head.

“I will never leave your side again until my body is cold and stiff!”

The campaign began two weeks later.
 
Word went out to the west by courier and, when possible, by radio machine.
 
A few days later, word came back that full scale revolt against the F'rar had begun.
 
Our own forces mobilized at the fortress stronghold.
 
Well camouflaged, it was a veritable castle carved halfway up the face of mount Cassini.
 
It was to be my place of safety, from which I would view the battle.
 
The very thought of it made me grit my teeth, but it was well appointed, and its war room was spacious and up-to-date.
 
General Xarr would stay behind also, with a small contingent of reserves.

Kerl rode out on a fine autumn morning, with Piesha beside him.
 
Her battle dress was magnificent, red beaten armor made by her people, ornamented with the colored flowers and filigreed birds of their region in the far north.
 
It was strong yet looked delicate.
 
Once again I had to stifle pangs of jealousy, though I did try to have her removed from battle for Kerl's sake.
 
The gesture was a useless one – bordering, I was informed, on insult.
 
The Sarn clan had always fought, man and betrothed, side by side, and it would always be so.

The gates of the stronghold were thrown wide as the army left at first light.
 
The rose-colored sun glinted off of hundreds of armored helmets and hundreds of steeds.

Kerl and Piesha turned to salute me.
 
And then they were gone, winding down the switchbacks to the wide plain below where the first battle would take place.
 
From the fortress tower, I could make out the F'rar army arranged in standard line.

Even before the tail of Kerl's army was out of sight, the F'rar were attacked on their flanks by the bands Kerl had assembled to the east and west.
 
The sounds of battle, muffled and far away, filtered up to me.
 
I was joined by Jamie, but I sent him away.
 
I wanted to be alone.
 
I was dressed in my finest robes, red and cream, with a beaten gold crown on my head.
 
If they wanted a figurehead I would be one, and stand tall for them to see while they fought, while some of them died.

Kerl's army reappeared, gaining the plain below, spreading out as they did so.
 
They were more ragtag than I realized, their weapons almost meager – some rifles, one cannon, a line of archers with many foot soldiers carrying spears, swords and knives.

I imagined I heard the call to charge, though I knew it was too far away to reach me.

The battle line advanced.
 
Kerl's single cannon fired off once, then again, crashing into the F'rar line, which had unwisely split in the middle to cover the flanking attack.

Kerl's men went straight for the break, which then closed up in a pall of smoke and the faraway popping of rifles.

The smoke grew higher and wider, covering the battlefield from end to end.

It was then that I saw, streaming down from the hills to the far west and east, a horde of white bodies on foot whose unearthly screams I could hear even from this distance.

“
Baldies
...” I whispered in disbelief.

The white horde disappeared into the fog of the battlefield.

The dust climbed into the air and held there like a fog.

I heard shouts around me, cries of sudden alarm.

I realized that it was not the smoke of battle at all I was witnessing, but the pall of a massive dust storm engulfing the entire field of battle.

It rolled higher, blotting out the rising sun, the sky, rolling up the mountainside like a red tide toward us.

I listened for sounds from the battlefield, but there was nothing now but the deadening sound of roaring wind.
 
Now the first pellets of sand and dust hit me.
 
I was thrown to my knees on the parapet as they became a flood.

Hands were under my arms, helping me to my feet.

“You must come inside!” a voice called, close to my ear.
 

The swirling dust was so thick now I could barely see the face – it one of my many attendants, a young girl named Beth whose husband was a foot soldier.

“I want to stay here for them, Beth!”

“You must come inside, my lady!”
 
she insisted.
 
She began to drag me away.

Now I could not see my own self.
 
The howling wind reached at me, trying to tear me away from the helping hands and out over the wall.

I fell to my knees and began to crawl toward the safety of the tower, Beth supporting me.

We made it safely inside, and with some effort Beth closed the heavy wooden door behind us.

Out of the howling wind and tearing dust, I rested on the stairs and contemplated the frightened visage of the girl who had assisted me.

“
They are all gone!
” Beth sobbed.

Breathing heavily, I put my paw on her arm.
 
“No.
 
But the battle is uncertain now.
 
All we can do is wait.”

“
All gone!
” she repeated in horror.

I heard the wild whistle of the wind at the door behind me, the pounding hiss of building sand, and had to wonder if she was right.
    

The storm lasted for two days.
 
It continued to intensify through the first day, until the world outside disappeared completely.
 

At first we hoped for stragglers to make their way back to the fortress, but I feared this was a false hope.
 
At the dawn of the second day, hopes rose when the howling wind suddenly slackened.
 
But this was only momentary, and when it resumed it was with even greater fury.

After spending time with Jamie and Xarr and other of my advisors, who had no advice to give and only gloom to offer, I retired to the kitchen with the cooks and two of my maidservants.
 
Beth had become close to me in the hours since the battle, and I was able to give her some comfort.
 
Feeling useless, I availed myself of the task.
  
The other maidservant was her steadfast friend, Masie.
 
I found that I enjoyed their company, especially in the kitchen, which was in the bowels of the fortress, and away from the beating howl of the wind.

“I heard tales about these here dust monsoons,” Brenda, our fat cook, was saying.
 
Though I was a Queen, she held her own court in this place.
 
She waved her spatula like a waggling finger.
 
“Heard tell of men bein' stripped to the bones after so long as an hour in the middle of it.”
 
She nodded her head sagely.

I briefly considered telling them of my own experience with a dust storm, but thought it best to be quiet.

Beth burst into tears.

“There, there, darlin',” Bertie, her skinny husband said.
 
“Don't you listen to ol' Brenda.
 
She's just talkin' tales she is.”

“The thing I find strange,” said Masie, who was educated and wise, older than Beth and less high-strung, “is how quickly it came on.
 
Not natural like.”

“Almost as if it was deliberate,” I added, unable to merely listen any longer.

There was instant quiet in the room.

“I told all of you already, to treat me as if I'm just another servant,” I said.

“Pardon me for saying it, my lady, but you ain't!” Brenda replied.

After a moment's hesitation, Massie broke out in laughter, and the others followed, Bertie's own “Haw, haw!” a few decibels above the rest.

It was the first laughter I had heard in two days, and I joined it.
 
Even Beth smiled momentarily, before beginning to fret again.

“I'm so worried...”

“I have to say,” I interjected, “that I much prefer the company of this room to a war room of melancholy advisers–”

At that moment Jamie appeared in the doorway, looking haggard and even older then he had before the battle.

“Pardon me, my Queen, but a survivor has made it to the front gates.”

I arose, and Beth gave a gasp.
 
“Is it–”

Jamie glanced at her and said, “It's Captain Prelan.”

“Is the storm over?” I asked.

Jamie shook his head.

“Then how did he make it back?”

Jamie continued to shake his head.
 
“I have no idea.
 
He's blind, and dying.
 
You should see him.”

I followed Jamie out of the kitchen, listening to the whispered chatter of my new friends behind me, and Beth's wail.

Captain Prelan's face was stripped naked and bloody, one of his eye sockets scoured clean and empty.
 
The other was bandaged.

He lay on a table gasping, calling in a rasping voice for water.
 
When water was given to him he dribbled a few drops into his mouth and cried, “Dry!
 
Dry!”

“Sit him up,” I said, gently.

I drew close, and took his bloodied paw in my own.
 
“Captain Prelan, it is Queen Haydn.
 
Can you hear me?”
                 

He stiffened into a form of attention.
 
“Yes!”

“Sit back, captain.
 
Can you tell us how you got here?”

“Crawled for... hours.
 
Water!”

Once again he took a few drops, and cried, “So dry!”

The doctor, who was supporting the captain's head, looked at me and said in a low voice, “His lungs and stomach are coated with dust.”

I nodded, and squeezed the captain's paw.
 
“Do you remember anything of the battle, Captain Prelan?”

“Filthy...Baldies...fighting aside the F'rar...”
 
Again he asked for water.
 
“The F'rar had dust masks.
 
They knew...”
 
Again, water, and now his voice was weakening.
 
“Kerl tried to ride through the storm but...it followed us like a flood...”

“The storm
followed
you?”

He nodded slightly, and then clutched my paw tightly.
 
“As if it was being directed.
 
Had to come back...Kerl sent me...the F'rar know about the fortress...”

“They know we are here?”
                                                                  

He nodded again, tried to speak, but only a croaking rasp came out.
 
“Water, please...”

I looked at Jamie and the other military advisors and said, “Come with me.”

 
“Newton of the Science Guild informed me that a feline named Talon has been providing the F'rar with technology.
 
He was an atmospherics and ballistics expert, and a traitor.
 
They may have developed a method to produce local dust storms.
 
Who knows what else they have developed.

“I think we can have every reason to believe that when the dust settles the F'rar army will be standing at our gates.”

“We cannot be there to meet them, your majesty!” General Xarr interjected.
 
“We have only my reserves, and not enough of them!
 
And only the old and very young beyond that!”

“I have no intention of fighting them now.
 
But I also have no intention of being here for them to slaughter.
 
Here is what we will do...”

When the storm began to lift the next evening we were ready.
 
The previous twelve hours had been hectic ones, but everyone from my old general down to the kitchen staff performed magnificently.