Chapter 25: Seeing the Elephant I

Tanda nodded to Tuck as she led her men through the main gate and into Xipototec.

She saluted like a proper Hostigi officer and delivered her formal report. He saluted back and told her to dismiss her men. She did, and then turned back to him.

Tuck smiled at her. "You will find your room in the palace untouched... except a bath has been laid and there are clean linens on the bed."

"None of the blood is mine," she told him, her head held high with pride.

"I didn't think it was," Tuck replied. "But it's at least a moon-quarter old."

She laughed. "I need a bath. I can sleep later."

"As you wish. You say you found what I was looking for?"

"Yes, a dozen Ruthani are still there, to report any movements. So far, there are none."

Tuck noticed one of the Ruthani standing close to Tanda. He was an older man, but most interestingly, he sported a dozen necklaces of what Tuck was sure were lion claws.

Tanda saw him looking at Lion and smiled to herself. "Tuck, this is someone I want you to meet."

Tuck nodded at Lion and stuck out his hand. "Pleased."

Lion shook hands with Tuck.

"You know how things are intensified in fighting?" Tanda went on.

Tuck looked at her, curious. But he did nod.

"Lion is a very special man."

"And Tanda is very special to me," Lion echoed.

Tanda saw Tuck's throat work. She had to be quick, she knew.

Lion must have sensed it, too. He dropped a hand on Tanda's shoulder. "Tanda Havra told me of her mother's death in childbirth. She told me of her father disowning her. I could not let one such as her go through life alone. That, and I know Manistewa. He is not fit for one such as Tanda Havra -- he isn't a bad man, just not good enough."

"Lion has adopted me," Tanda said quickly, sensing that Tuck had just about realized where the conversation was going.

Lion nudged Tanda. "Show him, daughter, show him!"

She pulled the pouch from her belt and handed it to Tuck.

He opened it and pulled out a lion claw necklace and ran his fingers over the claws. "Pretty big cat," Tuck said, nodding.

Lion grunted disdainfully. "I have killed larger. Once."

The last word had been considerably delayed. "But I shot it -- my daughter killed hers with a knife."

"Snuck up on it in daylight and slit its throat, right? From behind?" Tuck asked.

Lion nodded.

"I was lucky," Tuck told Lion. "It was dark, not light, she was coming at me from the front and I made her drop her knife, first thing." Tuck smiled at Lion. "You seem like an intelligent man, you probably are a good father."

"Many daughters," Lion said proudly, "many sons." A sly grin and he added, "Many, many wives."

"Don't even think about it," Tanda said, wanting to hold her sides from the laughter she contained.

It was impossible; the three of them broke into laughter together. Lion hugged Tuck, and then Tanda took herself off to her bath.

Later, she quickly explained the position she'd found. "A moon-quarter's march to the south?" he asked.

"Yes, a very slow march. They left a couple of stragglers as it was."

"And the attack on their camp?"

"A small party of cavalry joined them. I didn't want those cavalry troopers riding around. So we killed or ran off their horses. We did kill a few soldiers as well, but we made the horses a particular target."

Tuck nodded. "It has gone well here. We were very careful with the training. Very limited goals. You could probably hear the trainees banging away at targets as you came in."

"At first I was afraid the God-King's soldiers were here ahead of us," Tanda admitted. "There was a lot of shooting."

"Yes. We have seven thousand men now who know right from left and who can load, aim and fire their rifles. They can line up, they can count to four, and they are very eager to meet the God-King's soldiers."

Tuck smiled. "We will march day after tomorrow. Hopefully we will get to the ambush site before the God-King's men can. Otherwise, you said there were a few other places, just not as good."

"Yes, Tuck."

"And, keeping on with the good news, not only do we have seven thousand men who can march and shoot, we've trained another three thousand more to shoot. We have pulled out about two dozen of the smartest Mexicotal and made them corporals. They have spent the last three days learning how to train. I'm hoping they will be able to train a couple of thousand men a week to shoot. They'll stay behind and train people to defend the walls. With luck, we'll have five or six thousand people who can stand on the walls and shoot at an attacker.

"Tazi and Lady Judy?" Tanda asked.

Tuck laughed. "Lady Judy wanted to call her people something nasty. I convinced her that 'Throat-Cutters' is nasty enough. You are going to like them. Judy and Tazi run them out into the desert, first thing every morning. They run and shoot, shoot and run. Vosper has given them some bayonet drills, others have taught them other things. They are very quick to learn."

"And Hestius?" Tanda asked.

"He runs along behind, carrying a great, long cane. If anyone slows down, he spanks them."

Tuck paused and looked at her. "Did you see Zokala before you left?"

Tanda shook her head.

"She's Vertax's daughter," Tuck told her. "Vertax painted her face, like the God-King's priests do for those to be sacrificed. Since then, all of Lady Judy's Mexicotal recruits have painted their faces the same way. It's a matter of pride. More and more of the Mexicotal army recruits are doing it as well."

Tanda felt cold. "Won't the God-King's priests sacrifice them first?"

Tuck looked at her steadily; Tanda understood then. The Mexicotal were saying victory or death. Of course, since they were in revolt against the God-King, it would have been victory or death anyway.

Much later she walked on through the town, coming at last to a rooftop. A woman smiled at her, bowed and vanished down the stairway that had led here. Tanda sat down and keyed her transmitter.

When someone answered she simply asked to speak to Chief Vall.

It took a few moments, and then the now familiar voice sounded in her ear. "Tanda Havra?"

"You heard that Tuck took the town."

"Yes, I heard that. He's training up serfs and slaves to be soldiers."

"I don't know what you've been told or have heard about this."

"Not much. You understand, Tanda, that his chances there are somewhere between slim and none?"

"Sir, with all due respect, none of you know what you're talking about. It's going to blow apart, sir. Blow apart like what has happened now and again. Sir, Tuck told me he was going to give me a wedding present. He was going to finish the war by the winter solstice."

Chief Vall was silent for a moment. "I think that was bravado."

"Chief, he wants to marry me, he wants to keep his charges safe. He's serious. Deadly serious. I think he believes he's going to kill a whole lot of birds with one stone. Keep his girls safe, make the world safe for democracy and give the High King a present large enough to guarantee a warm welcome, regardless of Tuck's origin."

"You haven't heard, have you?" the Chief told her.

"Heard what?"

"The Zarthani and Mexicotal alliance is pretty much shattered. The siege at Outpost is broken, the Zarthani and Mexicotal are retreating separately."

Tanda fought down the urge to run and tell Tuck. "Sir, that wasn't an accident."

"No, it wasn't. But Tuck had almost nothing to do with it."

She snorted in derision.

"Okay," the Chief said with a laugh, "maybe he did have something to do with it. But look where he is now... everything that is going to happen now is going to happen six hundred miles to his east."

"Sir, I'm just reporting what I know. Now, I'm going to report something else. The Mexicotal former serfs and slaves are painting their faces like their priests would paint them before a sacrifice. They are, sir, committing themselves to victory or death. Tuck, Chief, is teaching them the tools for victory. I think what is going to happen here will be even more dramatic than what the High King did ten years ago."

"I'm not sure I understand. Many peoples have painted themselves before battle."

"Chief, this isn't for good luck or anything, this is an in-your-face warning to the God-King's entire power structure. There was an officer of the God-King's here that turned his coat because he couldn't stomach what was going on. What will happen to the God-King's armies when they see the people opposing them painted like this? What will happen in the cities and towns the God-King controls when they hear what's going on? Sir, I submit that you don't have a handle on it. That no one has a handle on it."

The Chief Paracop sighed. "It's catalysis... not something you've heard before."

"Technical," Tanda said, spitting on the ground.

"Technical," the Chief agreed. "Chemistry is a description of how the different physical parts of the world react with each other. Water, air, things like that."

Tanda was silent and after a short pause he went on.

"In the usual way of things, you take a little hydrogen, half as much oxygen and you get water. Hydrogen isn't something you're likely to know about, but oxygen is what is in the air that you breathe -- it's what makes your body work. Your body burns the food you eat using the oxygen to produce energy to get things done. A little of this, a little of that... and you get something else. Sometimes the mixing releases heat, sometimes it takes heat. A plus B equals AB. Simple."

"I understand."

"Good. A catalyst is something that makes A plus B happen without needing anything else. C facilitates A and B. Moreover, C remains unchanged and ready to do it again and again. Tuck is a catalyst. He's going to change everything and be relatively unchanged."

"That certainly sounds like Tuck, Chief," Tanda told him.

"The problem," the Chief replied, "is that this will be a wild reaction. Usually in chemistry you know what will happen. People aren't like chemicals... they do strange things. There is simply no telling how Tuck's changes are going to turn out."

Tanda laughed. "I think that was what I was trying to say."

Judy watched Tazi hug Tanda Havra, then smiled as the two walked off a ways to talk.

Hestius appeared at Judy's side. His eyes widened when he looked at the two women. "Do you see Tanda Havra's necklace?"

"Some sort of claws."

"Lion claws. Only someone who has killed one of the great lions may wear such a necklace."

Judy smiled slightly. "Tanda Havra. Kills From Behind."

Judy turned serious. "And what? Are we on a holiday? Get everyone turned out!"

Hestius grinned and a moment later, his whistle pipped.

In a few minutes, thirty-five Mexicotal stood at what passed for attention in Tuck's army.

It was something Judy was still getting used to. The former Mexicotal slaves and serfs treated their issued pants and shirts as Sunday best. Mostly, when they turned out, they wore very little. Certainly, nothing above the waist, and not much below the waist.

Tanda Havra walked over to Judy, looking over the young people in front of her. She didn't say a word, but every eye was on her. Tanda gestured at the camp gate. "You run, every day, yes?"

"Yes, Tanda."

"Come, let us run, then."

They started running, out the gate and through the cornfields. It didn't take long before they were in the desert.

Abruptly, like ghosts, Ruthani arose out of the desert around them, and joined them, running easily, some on either side.

Judy cursed not having seen them first.

Tanda looked at her, but didn't laugh. "Lady Judy, could we stop? Could I show your people a special way to run?"

"Sure." She gave the command to slow, and a few paces later everyone stopped.

None were breathing hard; those who couldn't run had long since been sent away.

Tanda Havra waved at them. "You run well. You run very well. When you are running to overtake an enemy, you would do very, very well! However, there are times that you want to shake their confidence. Make them fear you! I will show you how to run to put the fear into those you chase!"

Judy thought Tanda was a little disappointed when Hestius translated; there wasn't much show of spirit.

Still, Tanda kept on. She talked with Hestius for a few seconds, learned that they knew right and left, turn and march, then run.

"Tell them to turn right," Tanda told Hestius.

"Right!" Hestius called, and at once the rifles they carried in their right hands were lifted slightly off the ground. "Turn!" Hestius commanded. The movement wasn't militarily crisp, but everyone turned in the right direction.

"Right foot up," Tanda told them.

Hestius looked at her. "Tanda Havra, the only commands they know from this position is to march, run or stop."

"Just explain, okay?"

The troop promptly lifted their right feet.

"Now, right foot down, left foot up." Tanda told him.

Again, they did it.

In a few minutes, they were marching forward, but not in step which Judy had finally realized what Tanda was after. She wished she could have explained to Tanda that marching in step was something Tuck and the Hostigi officers had said could wait until later.

They stopped and Tanda Havra had Hestius showing the Mexicotal how to skip to get in step. They tried it again; there was a lot of skipping, put pretty soon, most everyone was in step, walking forward. Zokala was an acting corporal, and she would lightly tap those out of step with a cane, and within a mile, everyone was in step. Tanda Havra been calling, "Right" and "Left" and every one was pretty much in step.

Then Tanda halted them and spoke again. "Now, we will run. Listen to my call, speed up and lengthen your stride to match it!"

Hestius translated again, and then Tanda got them moving, starting slowly, and then gradually increasing speed. When they hit the right pace, it was electric. Everyone could hear it. Most feet were hitting at exactly the same time. A single, clear sound. And, truth be known, a little scary, Judy thought.

The Ruthani had been running alongside them, now they too fell into the same step. They ran for three miles like that, without a word before Tanda Havra stopped them.

"Now! Now you know one more thing that will put fear into the hearts of the God-King's soldiers!"

This time there were cheers when Hestius translated it.

Tanda turned to Judy again. "Another exercise?"

"Please," Judy said, pleased. "Whatever you think will help."

"Have you practiced trying to capture prisoners?"

Judy shook her head. "First we learned to march, then run, then shoot."

"Time, then, for a little practice." Tanda turned to an older man, a man who had a simply unbelievable number of lion claw necklaces and said something to him. The man looked over the Ruthani, and motioned to two of the younger men. A few more words and the two young men ran off into the desert, behind the group.

"They will hide," Tanda said.

The man said something to Tanda and she laughed. He too sprinted into the desert.

Tanda explain to Judy's company what was expected. "Three men are hiding behind you, along the way you came. None will be more than two hundred paces from your trail. None will be closer than five hundred paces from where you stand now, none further than a thousand paces. They will simply be still. If you see one of them, stand and point."

It wasn't but a few moments when, from behind them, came a harsh rasping cough.

"If you should ever hear that call again, Lady Judy, be careful!" Tanda told her. "That is one of the great mountain cats. Be ready!"

Judy nodded, and in a few minutes she had her people spread out. They filtered forward slowly, looking for the hiding Ruthani.

It was a simple thing. She saw Hestius' eyes were moving across the desert; then they stopped. She followed his glance, and at first didn't see the shape lying behind a small bush.

Hestius though, didn't say anything. Judy didn't think Tazi noticed either, certainly none of her other recruits saw the shape.

She felt more than heard a movement next to her a few seconds later and saw the man with the lion claws. Except the claws were gone, probably, Judy thought, into the fat pouch on his belt. He was dustier than he'd been, too.

He grinned and pointed to a saguaro cactus and mimed hugging it.

When the recruits had gone through the area, they turned on command and Tanda had the two Ruthani that everyone except Hestius had missed stand up.

For the next three palm-widths they did the exercise, over and over again. When her people were routinely finding the first two, three more Ruthani were chosen. Obviously, Judy thought, first they had looked for the ones who weren't as good as the others, because the next three men were much harder to find. She never saw Lion, the man with the claws, not so much as once, except for the first time. No matter how many saguaros she closely inspected.

It was a significantly more sober group that returned to the camp, shortly after High Sun. Tanda had waved goodbye and stayed outside with the Ruthani, while the rest of them filed in. The meals were never very boisterous, now everyone, it seemed, was thinking about how hard it had been to find the Ruthani hiding in the desert.

She spent some time with Hestius and Tazi making plans for their own exercises when the word was passed that there would be a council of war just before sundown, while everyone else was to get ready to march south at first light in the morning.

Legios threw his leg over the cantle of his saddle and dropped to the ground. Only the presence of Brigadier Markos a few steps away kept him from groaning in pain. He saluted and handed the map to his commander.

To the west, there was still a little light left in the sky, but not much. Half a dozen men stood around with flares to provide the Brigadier with enough light to read. He quickly looked at the map, before turning back to Legios.

"Very good, Ensign. Put your horse in the corral and then get some sleep. It is going to be a long night, I'm afraid."

Legios saluted again and hurried to the corral, the horse trailing docilely along behind him. He turned the horse over to an old horse sergeant at the corral gate.

"This one is mine," Legios told the sergeant.

The sergeant looked at the horse, then at Legios. "Who'd ya steal him from, eh Ensign?"

"Captain-General Harmakros," Legios replied.

The old sergeant laughed. "Ah, another lad corrupted by the Sixth Mounted Rifles! He'll be here, Ensign, when you need him! Ya have my word on it!"

Legios found a spot a few yards away from the corral, the area already dotted with sleeping forms. He pulled his blanket over himself, pillowed his head on a rock and slept almost at once.

It seemed like someone was shaking him awake the instant he'd closed his eyes. Legios groaned and opened his eyes. A corporal grinned. "Brigadier's compliments, sir. See him at once."

Legios glanced at the sky. It was dark, only a little past the middle of the night. He'd had perhaps two palm-widths of sleep.

Legios took a drink from his canteen, and when he did, he realized it was nearly empty. Try as he might, he couldn't remember once drinking from it the day before.

He rushed to Brigadier Markos, who was in conference with another officer. When the brigadier finished, he gestured to Legios, and the two of them walked a short ways forward.

Legios was a little nervous, knowing they were getting close to the edge of the cliff. True, the fall would only be fifty feet or so, but he didn't want to end his days falling off a cliff in the dark.

"Below us, Ensign, do you see there?" the brigadier pointed northwest at the base of the mesa. There was a group of flares and Legios could see men working in the light they provided. Working on the road, Legios thought.

"And now, at our feet," again Markos pointed, and again Legios could see another party of engineers working with flares.

"The way engineers build a road like this is to mark the course, then build from both ends. That way they build faster, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"The men at our feet need an officer. They lost theirs earlier this evening. Go back, Ensign, to the path we've cut up here, follow the path around to these men below us.

"All you have to do is listen to Sergeant of Engineers Lenardes; he knows what he's about. Your task is to keep people from bothering the good sergeant and his men as they work. If anyone has any questions about the work, you tell them to come see me." The brigadier grinned wolfishly. "You can tell them I received my orders personally from the Captain-General and that you received yours directly from me. The road is important, Ensign," the brigadier repeated. Then he turned to someone else, and started talking about supply points for the coming battle.

Obviously, Legios was dismissed.

He turned and hurried down the path. The "path" stayed a path for only a few feet, and then it became a narrow road, carved into the side of the hill. He passed through one group of engineers and kept going towards the others, about a quarter of a mile away. Legios glanced along the road. A few hundred feet away a company of men were busy digging a battery position; not the men he was supposed to oversee. He walked quickly along a faint trail, finding the working party by simply following the sounds of picks and shovels hitting rock.

A soldier with a rifle carried at port arms looked at him warily, and the Ensign asked, "Sergeant Lenardes?"

The guard gestured towards a thick set, burly man giving directions to half a dozen others.

The sergeant nodded at Legios, explained that they were working on a section of the road, working to meet another company of engineers, working towards them. "Couple of times, we've gotten complaints from captains that we're disturbing the beauty sleep of their companies. That's your job, sir. Keeping them happy." The sergeant waved ahead, at the torch lit area where the work was going on.

"Sir, Lieutenant Ahardes was a nervous sort; he couldn't stand still. He was curious, sir, and walked around a lot. He walked behind one of the pick men, who didn't know he was there."

Legios watched the pick men; swinging the picks over the tops of their heads, then back down. Legios felt ill.

"So if you would sir, please just stand still, well out of the way."

Legios nodded, although he didn't know how he was going to accomplish that. If he stopped moving for long he was going to fall asleep, standing or not. But the vision of the pick men went a long way towards waking him up. He decided that what he would do would be to follow the sergeant around and watch what he did. He himself had never wanted to be an engineer and watching these men work, confirmed that opinion. These men worked hard!

He mentioned that at one point to the sergeant, who laughed. "And tomorrow, Ensign, when the Mexicotal come? My men and I will be asleep, someplace in the shade. If you do your job right, no one will come and bother us."

The sergeant grinned and Legios nodded in understanding. The engineers were reserves; they'd spend a couple of days working, then rest during the battle. Could he sleep during a battle? He doubted it; of course, maybe to Sergeant Lenardes and his men it was old hat.

Two palm-widths before dawn, two men came up to the sergeant. "It looks like a little itty bitty rock," one of the corporals told his sergeant, "but when we started trying to dig it out, we found it's not small. And it's in a bad place. We are either going to have to reroute or blow it."

They moved down to where a group of men were standing around the tip of a solid piece of rock staring at it morosely. Legios measured it with his eye; obviously only a small piece had shown before. He looked at the hillside above them. A buttress of rock stuck out, there was a solid face just a few feet away. Below them the hillside dropped steeply away.

"We'll blow it," the sergeant said without hesitation. "Kouric, Stemic, round up your lads. Find out who's below us, if anyone. Find out who's around. Deimos, let the Brigadier know we're going to have to blow a rock. It won't be a very big bang, but it will sound loud in the dark! Tell him, in half a palm-width."

Men moved off, and the sergeant gestured to the other men. "You get working there!" He turned to one of the others. "Fetch my hammer and chisel from my bag." The man ran to obey.

Legios watched wide-eyed as the sergeant dug a small hole to one side of the rock buried in the ground, then very quickly and competently drilled a hole in the rock itself.

Legios saw the sergeant stand, look around, then grin at him. "Okay, everyone else knock off; get back to the safety line!"

Legios had heard the sergeant talking earlier about the safety line with one of the younger sergeants, now all of the men stopped working and moved away. Another corporal appeared from the dark, carrying a small bundle, another with a roll of something that stretched back into the dark. They put their loads down carefully and then they vanished back into the night.

"I'm going to set the charge," Sergeant Lenardes told Legios, who shrugged, not understanding what was going on, but curious nonetheless.

The sergeant went to his knees, digging into the larger knapsack. He poured dark powder into the hole he'd drilled into the rock, measuring the amount carefully, Legios thought. The sergeant took what looked like clay and plugged the last bit of hole, then took the small bundle from the other pack and unwound a few more feet from it. Fuse, Legios thought, entranced.

Sergeant Lenardes glanced at him, and then the sergeant was busy carefully pushing the heavy fuse through the clay. The sergeant pointed to a few small rocks, and Legios brought them to him, like a young boy bringing tools to his father. The sergeant carefully set the rocks so that the fuse ran in a crack between them. Finally the two of them were lifting larger rocks, careful not to set them on the fuse.

For the first time Legios asked a question. "Why the rocks, sergeant?"

The veteran engineer grinned. "Explosions are like small children, Ensign. They follow the line of least resistance. They don't like even a little bit of it, when they meet it. I could stack a hundred pounds of fireseed on that rock, set it off and just color the surface. It would make Styphon's Hell of a racket, though. With the rocks, the explosion will be, just for a moment, trapped. And will work equally on the rock in the ground as the ones above it." He began paying out the fuse, until they were about a hundred yards away.

"This fuse is supposed to burn a yard in a heartbeat," the sergeant told Legios. "We have, thus, a hundred heartbeats to get further away. The fireseed maker's guild uses only masters to make fuse. Even so, I've seen it go out. I've seen it burn at half the rate. A third the rate. I've seen it flash the entire length so fast, you didn't have time to blink."

"Is everyone ready?" Sergeant Lenardes called to his junior sergeant, further back. The man waved that they were. "Okay, we'll proceed."

He turned to Legios. "Just remember sir, I'm going to be running pretty damn fast for the first couple of hundred yards. You'll want to be out of the way or quicker."

With that he leaned down, took a striker from a bag, and flicked it. A spark shot out, then a flame. There was a hiss and the fuse started burning. "Now, sir!" The two of them took off running back along the road, side by side.

It was anti-climactic. They pulled up, a quarter mile off. "Well?" Sergeant Lenardes asked one of his men.

"Went off a few heartbeats ago," the corporal opined.

He hadn't even heard it? Legios was chagrined, but the sergeant didn't seem to have heard it either. The sergeant gestured the way they had come and Legios and the others followed him back at a more sedate pace. The sergeant looked at the place where the charge had been set. The rocks, so laboriously piled on top, had been tossed around. The recalcitrant rock was shattered into pieces. They stood looking at it for a few moments, then the sergeant turned to Legios.

"Are you aware of the High King's Field Regulations as they apply to demolitions?" Legios shook his head. "They state, quite unequivocally, that an officer shall supervise all field demolitions. I didn't think you knew that, though."

"I was curious, sergeant," was all Legios could think of saying; that and he'd been desperate to find a way to stay awake another few finger-widths.

"Well, we've spent enough time on this!" the sergeant said. He reached inside his jerkin and blew a sharp blast on his whistle. Men appeared from the darkness. Half a dozen began to heave the rocks away from the blast site; the rest went back to work on the road.