Far Side Two
Copyright© 2025 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 7
I
Glaive might have been very popular with the surviving Tengri, but that didn’t last very long the next morning. For one thing, he ordered eight observers posted at all times atop the fortress during daylight, since he had only two hundred and forty soldiers left and they served five daylight hours at a time, it meant they served every two weeks, having only the eclipses off.
And what if they were off guard duty? The first thing he made them do was build a stack of raw logs twice as high as a man, then carry out the dead creatures from the main fortress. The winds blew generally towards the east, so the pyre was built east of the fortress. Glaive laughed to himself after they lit it; the fire was in the lee of the fortress and at first, until it got going well, the wind swirled giving everyone a most unpleasant smell.
Then, the soldiers joined the artisans constructing doors, and then seating them; they started with the roof exit. The civilians had been terrified during the fighting only knowing that it was steadily growing closer. The head of the civilians had demanded proper burial ceremonies for the dead and once again they were terrified that there were only a dozen or so, men who had retreated missing limbs, and who later died of blood loss.
On the evening of the day after the attack, he spoke to the soldiers. “I am going to tell you hard truths, truths that go against all you’ve been taught about firearms. The creatures either fly very high or they swoop down, very fast. These creatures are as smart as your children; they know how long it takes you to reload. Shooting at a rapidly moving target isn’t accurate ... almost always you will miss.
“You’ve seen these creatures! Do you really want to stand still to reload for most of a minute? It’s clear the creatures aren’t as hampered by powder smoke as we are. Do you really want to stand still, reloading, when you can’t see past your muzzle and the creatures can see you?
“These creatures are like children,” Glaive told his men. “That means you are smarter than they are! They might approach fast, but they have to slow to a stop to strike. I understand how dangerous it is to wait until the last moment, but if you are steady, you can score. Then, the thing you have to do is retreat to a safer place to reload. I realize that doing this over and over again, knowing if you make a mistake, you die, asks a lot.
“Thus we are building interior doors with loopholes at various heights. Men, you are all that remains to protect your wives and children! You have to be smart! Fire and then fall back several steps so someone else can take your place at the door, while you reload. If you stay at a door to reload, you compromise the defense of all of us ... including our families. The first time I see someone reloading at a door, I’ll shoot him myself.
“These creatures are more primitive than the barbarians. They have no firearms, they have no axes!”
A single soldier asked to be recognized. Glaive waved for the man to speak. “Lord Viceroy, I fought at our fort. I was one of the men who went prone in the tower room...”
Glaive gulped. He had been told that none survived. “Lord Viceroy, today I expected to retrieve the bodies of my fallen comrades. They all died in the attack ... but it was not to be. Their bodies were all removed. I doubt if the creatures buried them with the proper rituals.”
Glaive stomped his right foot. “I salute a brave man!”
The man waved his hand dismissively. “Sire, I live to serve the Emperor! Lord Viceroy, I noticed something when I was on the floor. One of the creatures, directly in front of me, had three bands around its right leg. I shot it, saw it fall before I retired to reload. Twice more I noticed creatures with one band each. It was my thought I was shooting at officers. I hit two of the three of those I saw, my Lord. Yet, when we were policing the creatures’ bodies, none were wearing bands.
“I am just a common soldier, Lord Viceroy, but it was my thought those with bands were officers and the creatures removed their fallen officers as well as our fallen. As they did our firearms.”
Glaive spoke firmly, “Soldier, your name?”
“Harcour of Gelm, Lord Viceroy.”
“Let me address the easiest of your observations. There is no way that the creatures could load and fire a firearm. None. They don’t have hands; certainly they don’t even have gloves. They don’t have ground to rest their firearm against as they reload. It takes two hands to reload a weapon resting on the ground. Few, very few have mastered reloading without their weapon resting on the ground.
“And that is just loading them! The creatures have no hands! No trigger fingers! No smiths! Our smiths wear treated leathers, fire-resistant. Creatures have flammable skin and muscles! Naked smiths would have a short lifetime!”
Everyone laughed, as Glaive expected. “They can’t beat the metal with hammers, nor trim pieces with files. In short, they can’t build or use firearms.”
The soldier bowed his head and didn’t speak. Glaive recognized that this wasn’t humility for being corrected, but because the soldier disagreed.
“Soldier!” Glaive barked. “The Emperor has many soldiers and slaves to do his bidding. I don’t have many of the former and none of the latter left to me. You think I’m wrong. You didn’t even think about it!”
“Lord Viceroy, I am just a soldier. Those rings? Who hammered the metal? Who affixed them to their legs? The bands I saw were so wide.” He held his fingers about two inches apart.
“Soldier Harcour, the position of my deputy has fallen vacant. After this meeting, attend me. You are appointed in his place.”
II
Glaive studied the new man for a bit when they met later in private. The other stared back at him steadily. I’m being foolish, Glaive thought. A man who fought his way from the tower room isn’t likely to be scared of me.
“First, we are about to go down to the radio room. Nothing you hear there is to be repeated unless I tell you or the Emperor tells you that you may. The Emperor had four radio operators and a watch commander killed the other day for not telling him something unpleasant ... but exceedingly important. Do not make a mistake. Err on the side of caution -- and don’t hold back important information, like what you just gave me.”
“Yes, sire.” The man hesitated, then went on, “Sire, my father is General Harcour. Growing up, I was told that I would be a general someday because my father was. When I was old enough, I ran away from home and joined the army as a musketeer. I have served ten years in that capacity. I thought I was only making a useful observation, not trying to advance myself.”
“I did not advance you for who your father is. I advanced you because you came away with valuable intelligence and had the wit to tell me. Now, listen to what passes, and afterwards tell me your thoughts, but in private. I go to treat with the barbarians.”
“I am aware of that, Lord Viceroy.”
“Then be silent and understand the humiliation I suffer for the Emperor.”
A few minutes later, he had the radio operator contact the barbarians. The deputy war leader was brought quickly to their radio. Glaive told the radio operator to report the observation that some of the attacking creatures had bands on their legs.
“And what did we tell you before?” came the reply. “The dralka have humans enslaved; the humans build things for them.”
“And I suppose the confirmation is worth nothing?” Glaive asked, incensed.
“Lord Viceroy of the West, Admiral of the Western Fleets ... we have known this for months. We told you of this as soon as we started trading information. What did you think when the War Leader told you that they had enslaved humans and were using human hands to build things?”
Glaive waved at the radio operator to cut the connection.
The radio operator gulped, then turned to Glaive. “Sire, they say that only fools attack the bearers of bad news. Their carrier remains active.”
The man again bent to his radio and said, “They say that in the future they will transmit in the clear; we can use any code we like. They added that there is a storm coming.”
Glaive flashed on the hell that had been the storm that had nearly driven them on these coasts. He turned to his new deputy and ordered him to tell the survivors to prepare for a storm.
“They are still transmitting, my Lord. They say that the Builders once had cities on these islands, but those cities were overwhelmed by storms. They caution us to be careful and keep well back from the sea. They add that radios like ours will be unusable at the height of the storm. There is a lot of lightning.”
Glaive grimaced. That was his experience as well. And yes, radios ‘heard’ the lightning.
A half-day later, he was once again fighting for his life. The waves rolled in, each wave driving higher on the beach. Early on he’d ordered everyone into the upper stories of the fortress, but the people were reluctant because that had been where most of the casualties occurred during the attack.
He sought out Yourel. “Listen to me. You have to tell people that they can’t stay low. Already our watchers tell us the waves have climbed halfway to the other, lower, fortress. No creatures will be flying in this and if they were to try they wouldn’t come close. The people have to get higher!”
The wind howled outside and the waves nearly reached the main entrance to the main fort ... they did reach the other fort, the second one, closer to the sea. The one man who remained outside as an observer reported that it lasted only an hour under the battering of the waves.
Glaive went out on the parapet after the last man had been pulled back. Lightning forked the sky, and as bad as that was, the waves marched in steady ranks. There was nothing left of the other fortress, and shortly the waves would be lapping at their fortress. Glaive was aware it had been only chance that the fortress that he had defended had been on the highest ground. Still, it was the situation he faced.
The waves, in the end, advanced no further than twenty feet below the fortress. Huge quantities of spray came as the waves spent themselves against the rocks, but he held fast. He had stood solid and determined against all who stood against him. Several lightning bolts hit close, but it seemed to Glaive the storm had saved the worst for last.
He would probably have been blinded if he had been facing the other way. The rain had long since soaked him; he wondered idly if the water had helped or hurt. All he knew was there was a flash that seemed brighter than the sun behind him, followed instantly by the loudest clap of thunder he had ever heard ... and in that instant it seemed that every muscle in his body spasmed and he fell nearly senseless to the ground, no more able to stand upright than a puppet with its strings cut.
He was barely conscious when someone picked him up and threw him over his rescuer’s shoulder. He was carried downstairs while someone called frantically for carpenters. Glaive was outraged and managed to roll over on one side. He saw the reason for concern then -- the door they had built that led outside was burning. Burning! It was blazing, the rain still beating down in torrents. Even as Glaive watched, he saw the fire gutter out ... at least he hoped it was out, because he could no longer hold onto consciousness.
III
Andie Schultz stepped boldly through the Far Side door, after having warned Melek that they would arrive facing the wrong way, halfway along a dock. Sure enough, as short as the existence of the door had been, there were curious gawkers present when they came through. This time their Andie and Melek had their weapons in their hands.
Within a few seconds, spectators had been cleared away, and a half dozen soldiers or policemen were lined up facing them.
Andie spoke loudly. “I am Andie, War Leader of the Starmen. I am speaking Tengri because that is who we have met. We Starmen do not hold with slavery; we have fought the Tengri on land and sea and have beaten those we have faced. Now we have met an expedition of the B’Lugi under Captain Danei, and we would join with you in ridding the world of the scourge of slavers.
“With me is Melek, a captain in the army of Arvala, who are the descendants of those you know as the Builders, who has come to break the chains of the slaves.”
One of the men seemed to understand Andie and lofted his musket a few inches. “Why then do you speak the language of the slavers when you have met us?”
“Captain Danei didn’t stay long enough to teach us your language; she was in a hurry to return. There are other enemies we face besides the Tengri, and she won a hard-fought, bitter victory over some of those enemies. Know that Arvala is a nation on the landmass to the west. Nine thousand miles west! We Starmen are from the stars; from so far away, our home star is not visible in your sky.
“Earlier, we tried to tell Councilor Hardan about his daughter, but he treated us as enemies. He dealt with us falsely. Captain Danei is a reasonable person and has assured us that not all of the B’Lugi are like that. We wish to war on the Tengri, and we are willing, as we have done to the Arvalans, to offer much copper for your assistance. We would do our own fighting.”
“Know that we Starmen have weapons far better than yours. We have ships of the air as you have ships of the sea. Our ships of the sea don’t need sails.”
The man facing Andie laughed. “I am a junior officer of the watch. I have sent runners for those who can answer your fine words.”
Andie spoke again, “If I might be permitted a simple demonstration of the power of our weapons. We come in peace and wish to negotiate in fairness for our mutual benefit. To my immediate left is a piling that sticks up from the pier several feet.”
“I see it.”
Andie flipped a switch on her P-90, turning on the laser sight. “Now, do you see the red dot, about a foot above the dock, on the piling?”
The officer looked at the red dot and turned wary. “I see it.”
“I will trigger one shot from my weapon. Pay attention to the water beyond the piling. My weapon is louder than yours, more accurate ... and more deadly. And, as the Tengri found to their serious regret, fires a bullet, but no smoke. Please tell the others not to be startled. I will count to three and shoot on three.”
When he finished warning the others, Andie counted and fired one shot. The piling was eighteen or so inches in diameter, and the bullet hit the red spot, then splinters flew from the back of the piling and the round splashed in the water beyond.
Andie tried not to laugh. “And of course, you noticed that I was not obscured by powder smoke.”
The young officer smiled as well. “I saw your bullet hit the piling. If I fired at it, I’d not see whether or not I hit it.”
There was the sound of men approaching, running in step. Andie looked up and saw two files of men led by one man. They separated and came to a stop with the leader in the forefront of a ‘V’ formation.
The leader said something and the young officer answered. The leader of the new group looked at Andie. “You don’t look like Tengri,” he said in Tengri.
The young officer explained what Andie had said -- speaking in Tengri. The leader was addressed as ‘General’ and by name. The general turned to Andie. “So, you say you aren’t Tengri?”
“That’s right, General. I am the War Leader of the Starmen. We war against the Tengri.”
“You look like a child.”
“Which should tell you the foolishness of making assumptions about what you think you see.” She lofted the P-90 about an inch. “I negotiated once with the Tengri who had invaded the western landmass, some nine thousand miles to the west. They thought as you do. I killed more than a dozen men who thought they were safe shooting at me. They were wrong. I live and they all died.”
“I understand your companion claims to be descended from the Builders. Let him speak.”
“Understand he only speaks Builder and his accent is different from what the Builders used.” She turned to Melek and asked him to speak. Andie smiled as she realized that several more men had come up behind the soldiers.
“I am Captain Melek, a descendant of the Builders. My fighting order is the Chain Breakers and I am here as a personal representative of our King. I have fought several times at the side of Lady Andie. The Emperor-to-be of the Starmen is a more fearsome fighter, but there is no fighter smarter than Lady Andie.”
The general turned again to Andie. “We have no proof. You do look like a child.”
“Two hours ago, I sent three representatives to tell Councilor Hardan we have met his daughter and offered to let him talk, as in speak to her in person. He dealt falsely with my people. In truth, Captain Danei told us that she was as believing as you are, and didn’t want to tell ill stories of her family. Now, we know.”
The general laughed and stomped his right foot. “He is an ass, isn’t he? I had reports that he was gulled by spies and had sent them packing. I haven’t heard his explanation of why he captured none of them.”
“General, two things. This young officer,” she waved at the young man, “was very correct. He talked politely. He allowed me to fire my weapon at a piling. He explained my conversation with him to you in Tengri, providing me assurance that he was telling the truth. General, no army has too many intelligent junior officers.
“And then there is Captain Danei of the B’Lugi. Know that I met her after she had been attacked by an unexpected enemy and had suffered grievous losses. General, she lost two-thirds of her crew. The attackers were flying creatures from the western landmass. These attackers stand a third higher than a man, their wings as wide as two fat men standing, their fingers outstretched and touching.
“Captain Danei was lucky. She had rescued one of my allies who had been taken into slavery by pirates. He had no weapons, but he guided her to repulse the attack. There were more than a thousand attackers. I lost people in that attack; dear allies lost people in that attack. They have long beaks filled with sharp teeth. Now we find that there are larger creatures that wish to eat us as well. They are half again the size of the first creatures. We call those first creatures ‘dralka’ and the larger ones ‘dralha.’”
“And you say your weapons are better than ours.”
Andie nodded. She lifted a radio to her lips and said in English, “Now, sweetie.”
The UAV dropped two thousand feet and lined up along the pier and went overhead.
“That was impressive,” the general said. “But weapons...”
“General, I demonstrated my firearm to your officer. I would like to conduct another demonstration.”
“She fired a shot at a piling, she did not reload,” the young officer said, and waved at it.
“General, I tell you in advance, I had fifty bullets in my weapon. I’ve shot one; now I want to shoot three more times at that piling.”
“She put a red dot on the piling and hit it with her weapon,” the lieutenant said.
“I don’t see a red dot,” the general said.
“Behold,” Andie said once again, turning on the laser sight. “Do I have your permission to fire?”
The red dot appeared, and the general said yes. Andie had moved the selector to a three-shot burst, and the three shots rapped out in a fifth of a second.
The general tried to retain his composure. “I could hear three shots, but they were ... close together.”
“No powder smoke, General,” the lieutenant said.
Andie tried hard to suppress a grin. “I fired once and had 49 bullets left. Now three more, leaving 46. With your permission, I’ll empty my weapon at the piling.”
“As fast?”
“Yes and no. This weapon fires 900 bullets per minute. Three seconds.”
“And no smoke?”
“General, there is smoke ... just not as much.”
“And what assurance do I have that you won’t turn that weapon on us?”
“General, if I were going to do that, it would have already happened. Sir, may I have permission to reload?”
“Adding four more? For what purpose?” the general asked.
“Sir, I beseech you. We come in peace. What harm could four more bullets do?”
“Considering how effective one is? Sure, reload,” the general said.
Andie undid the magazine latch, dropped the nearly full magazine into a pouch on her belt, and took another and seated it.
The general swallowed visibly. “That’s all?”
Andie pulled the trigger and, by main force, kept her aim at the piling even if she had to stop firing twice. The top of the piling flipped into the sea before she finished, having cut the piling in half. Andie changed magazines again.
“You could kill us all...” the general whispered.
“And I said we come in peace,” Andie said. “Killing everyone doesn’t win friends or influence people to us positively.”
IV
Andie was amused that Melek was the most popular person with all the Builder scholars of the B’Lugi. When she appeared, Chaba spoke to a few scholars, but not many. Some navy officers joined the general, and Andie explained Captain Danei to them, and again offered to let them speak to her.
One of the officers, reported to be a captain, actually took her up on her offer, saying Danei had served under him before she was promoted to her own ship. Andie explained how the radio worked and then added a caveat. “We can automatically resend radio signals. In this case, it will go through the door to our home, then back to our base on the western continent, where we will send it to Captain Danei’s ship. We will have to use Tengri at first, then my own language. One of my men is with Captain Danei. Once the conversation is working, I have some housekeeping to cover. The Tengri are out in force seeking her ship, a dozen frigates, and at least two ships of the line.”
“She shouldn’t give her position away then, by transmitting.”
Andie grinned. “We know a lot more about radio than you do. I won’t explain how we do it, but we shift frequencies several hundred times a second and at a frequency higher than you can receive. For instance, we have been transmitting back home continuously.”
“You said you came through a door. I see nothing like that.”
“Our knowledge of those doors is recent, and we just learned to resize them. Like the iris of an eye, it can expand or contract at our need. If you were to walk about twenty paces further down the pier and turn around and look about eight feet in the air, you’d see a blue dot about the size of your fist. Lucky you, if it faced the other way back home, they could watch me live. You too...”
“And Captain Danei?”
“As I said, they are listening to us. The connection is ready.” She handed him a walkie-talkie and explained its use. “One last thing, Captain. Your junior officer was quite clever. He explained to his General in Tengri, so I would know he told the truth. You speak fair Tengri, and so does Captain Danei. I promise you the Tengri will not know we are communicating.”
The captain spoke, and sure enough, Andie could hear Danei’s voice answering. “Is that really you, Danei? What about that time in the storm off South Island?”
“It was off Farallon; we were an hour from home and were caught in that fearsome squall. It took every man aboard to stay alive.”
“You are well then?”
“Larry, I am not well. I lost two-thirds of my crew to the most horrible and terrible creatures that flew against us. We had rescued one of Lady Kris’s people a few days before. He saved my life, Larry. His advice kept the rest of us alive; I rallied the survivors and drove them off. If I’d listened and believed sooner, I could have saved many more of my men!”
Andie interjected. “We discussed this before, Captain Danei. You faced an unexpected danger the nature of which was unknown. Charles was still an unknown, Captain. You had nothing but his words. I’ve heard the thought from both B’Lugi and Tengri: ‘You say!’ It’s said with disbelief and derision. You resisted Charles’s suggestion of lying in your radio reports to home ... he told you that the Tengri knew your codes. He had to rub your nose in it before you accepted it.”
“The Tengri can read our codes?” the captain asked, shocked.
“Yes, we can read them as fast as you send; the Tengri take about an hour to break them. Charles asked Captain Danei to go north to meet the Arvalans, descendants of the Builders who fled the fall of their last city, and to send a message to you in her best code that she was heading south to escape the Tengri.”
“She lied?” the captain was aghast.
“The Tengri were riding the beam of her transmissions. She had not heard from home for weeks; she was sending in hopes your receivers were better than hers.”
“We haven’t heard from her for two months,” the captain said. “Danei, you lied?”
“I lied to the Tengri, I’m sorry I had to do so; otherwise, I would have failed.”
Andie had watched the admiral turn and gallop away as fast as he was able. It was obvious he was handicapped in some way; he had a rolling gait that only looked inefficient. He grabbed one of the officers several hundred yards back, grabbed him by his jacket, and yelled at him. The man was off just as fast, but moved much faster.
Danei spoke again, “Larrys, we are about to attempt to pass through the line the Tengri have established to intercept us. We aren’t safe. Now we are told that some of these creatures have struck a Tengri frigate at the end of their line ... that ship is off the air. Frigate Crewel. I know for a fact that unprepared, the creatures would have a free rein. It was a lucky thing that Charles saved me. Larrys, tell your son that I am sorry. Charles saved my life; he fed one of the creatures a musket, which broke many teeth. Charles held the door while I had a chance to think, and I killed one of the creatures at the door, and Charles stayed behind to cover my escape to the gun deck. Then he helped rally my survivors, and we gave them some direct volleys from behind bulkheads and hatch covers. They fled. The War Leader of the Starmen’s allies took grievous losses as well.
“I negotiated with the Arvalan king for supplies and some crewmen. Lerrys, I watched them practice. The best weapons they have are simple crossbows ... I saw a Tengri fort they had captured and interviewed about eighty freed slaves. My choice as to which. They were helpless, Larrys. Just like the slaves we free. They have no idea of what freedom means. It takes time and good heart to educate them.”
“Something you said earlier. Who is this ‘Lady Kris?’”
“Lady Andie said she was going herself. Understand that Lady Kris threw down the then-king of Arvala. Her father threw down his king as well, when his king obstructed the rescue of Lady Kris and Lady Andie.”
“I am confused. Andie says she is the War Leader of the Starmen. She seems young.”
“Larrys, they are young. Andie negotiated with the Tengri ... she got them to abandon their cannon at their fort, and the frigate Abna was made to push their cannon into the sea. The ship of the line, Glaive, was destroyed. They did not realize one of the Tengri ships was a transport. They blew it up; I don’t know the name, but there was just one survivor. A child, since fostered by Lady Kris.”
Danei was silent for a minute. “Larrys, we have a Tengri frigate in sight. We are traveling without all sails aloft. There is a chance we can slip past him. I have to go. It’s early in the day here, we’ll have to be clever to escape without a fight.”
“Good luck, Danei!”
“Captain Larrys, let me tell how it is,” Andie said. “I have my intelligence people working with Captain Danei. There was not supposed to be a Tengri ship along her course; but we were pretty sure that some of their ships had gone radio-silent. We have told her to strike all of her sails and let her ship be pushed back west; the winds there blow from east to west. They will watch the Tengri ship and if they react, Danei will speed further west. We have another plan for getting her through the Tengri line but it is more dangerous as she will need to set every scrap of canvas she has. Fortunately, Captain Melek saw personally to a new set of sails for her.
“The Big Moon will rise in midafternoon, and when it does, she will head further north and then tack east ... it is possible she can run both Tengri lines tonight and the next night. If the Tengri were as smart as they think they are, their lines wouldn’t run a sailing day apart.”
The B’Lugi captain gave a very human sigh. “The Tengri are equal to us and our allies. They recently changed directions in their society, and now they are spending a great deal on research. Before the last twenty years, we could rely on them to be behind in technology. We discovered radio, and they somehow learned of its existence. They set a trap for a radio-equipped ship, and that seems to have been when they realized that they had to out-research us as well as out-produce us.”
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