[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
to be in a reasoning mood. Now all of his hatred was turned against one man,
and he could not be stopped.
"Temuchin!" he roared. "Come out of your gilt hiding place. Come out, you
coward, and face me, Kerk of Pyrrus! Show yourself-coward!"
Ahankk, who was the guard officer, came running with his sword drawn, but Kerk
backhanded him offhandedly, his attention still fixed on the palace.
Ahankk dropped and rolled over and over and remained there, unconscious or
dead. Surely dead, with his head at an angle like that.
"Temuchin, coward, come out!" Kerk shouted again. When the stunned soldiers
touched their weapons, he turned on them, snarling.
"Dogs-would you attack me? A high chief, Kerk of Pyrrus, victor of The
Slash?" They fell back before his burning anger, and he turned to the palace
as the front entrance was thrown wide. Temuchin strode out.
"You dare too much," he said, his cold anger matching that of Kerk's.
"You dare," Kerk told him. "You break tribal law. You take a man of my tribe
and torture him for no reason. You are a coward, Temuchin, and I name you that
before your men."
Temuchin's sword flashed in the sunlight as he drew it, a fine tempered length
Page 97
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
of razor-sharp steel.
"You have said enough, Pyrran. I could have you killed on the spot, but
I want that pleasure for myself. I wanted to kill you the moment I first saw
you-and I should have. Because of you and this creature which calls itself
Jason, I have lost everything."
"You have lost nothing-yet," Kerk answered and his sword pointed straight at
the warlord's throat. "But now you lose your life, for I shall kill you."
Temuchin brought his sword down in a blow that would have cut a man in two-but
it rang off Kerk's blade. They battled then, furiously, with no science and no
art-barbarian sword fight, just slash and parry, with eventual victory going
to the strongest.
The clang of their steel rang in the silence of the courtyard, the only other
sound being the rasping of their breath as they fought. Neither would give
way, and they were well matched. Kerk was the older man, but he was the
stronger. Temuchin had a lifetime of sword fighting and battles behind him and
was absolutely without fear.
It went on like that, a rapid exchange that was broken suddenly by a sharp
twang as Temuchin's sword snapped in two. He threw himself backward, out
of the way of Kerk's slash, so that instead of gutting him it cut a red gash
in his thigh, a minor wound. He sprawled at full length, blood slowly seeping
into the golden silk he wore, as Kerk raised his sword in both hands for the
last, unavoidable blow.
"Archers!" Temuchin shouted. He would not submit to death this easily.
Kerk laughed and hurled his sword away. "You do not escape that easily, ruling
coward. I prefer to kill you with my bare hands."
Temuchin shouted wordless hatred and sprang to his feet. They leaped at each
other with the passion of animals and closed in struggling combat.
There were no blows exchanged. Instead, Kerk closed his great hands around the
other's neck and tightened. Temuchin clutched his opponent in the same way,
but the muscles in Kerk's neck were steel ropes: he could not affect them.
Kerk tightened his grip.
For the first time Temuchin showed some emotion other than unthinking anger.
His eyes widened and he writhed in the clutch of the closing fingers.
He pulled at Kerk's wrists, but to no avail. The Pyrran's grip tightened like
that of a machine, and just as implacably.
Temuchin twisted about, got his hand in the back of his belt and pulled out a
dagger.
"Kerk! He has a knife!" Rhes shouted, as Temuchin whipped it around and
plunged it full into Kerk's side under the lower edge of his breastplate.
His hand came away and the hilt of the dagger remained there.
Kerk bellowed in anger-but he did not release his grip. Instead, he moved his
thumbs up under Temuchin's chin and pushed back For a long moment the warlord
writhed, his boot tips almost free of the ground and his eyes starting from
their sockets.
Then there was a sharp snap and his body went limp.
Kerk released his grip and the great Temuchin, First Lord of the high plateau
and of the lowlands, fell in a dead huddle at his feet.
Mete rushed up to him, the red stain spreading on his side.
"Leave it," Kerk ordered. "It plugs the hole. Mostly in the muscle, and if it
has punctured some guts, we can sew it up later. Get Jason down."
The guards made no motion to interfere when Rhes pulled away one of their
halbends and, hooking it in the bottom of the cage, pulled it crashing to the
ground. Jason rolled limply with the impact. His eyes were set in black
hollows and his skin was drawn tautly over the bone of his face. Through his
rags of clothing red burns and scars could be seen on his skin.
"Is he. . . ?" Meta said, but could not go on. Rhes clutched two of the bars,
tensed his muscles, and slowly bent apart the thick metal to make an opening.
Jason opened one bloodshot eye and looked up at them.
Page 98
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Took your time about getting here," he said, and let it drop shut again.
23
"No more right now," Jason said, waving away the glass and straw that
Meta held out to him. He sat up on his bunk aboard the Pugnacious, washed,
medicated, his wounds dressed, and with a glucose drip plugged into his arm.
Kerk sat across from him, a bulge on one side where he had been bandaged. Teca
had taken out a bit of punctured intestine and tied up a few blood vessels.
Kerk preferred to ignore it completely.
"Tell us," he said. "I've plugged this microphone into the annunciator system,
and everyone is waiting to hear. To be frank, we still don't know what
happened-other than the fact that both you and Temuchin think that each lost
by winning. It is very strange."
Meta leaned over and touched Jason's forehead with a folded cloth. He smiled
and put his fingers against her wrist before he spoke.
"It was history. I went to the library to find out the answer, later than I
should have-but not too late, after all. The library read a lot of books to me
and very quickly convinced me that a culture cannot be changed from the
outside. It can be suppressed or destroyed-but it cannot be changed. And
that's just what we were trying to do. Have you ever heard of the Goths and
the Hunnish tribes of Old Earth?"
They shook their heads no and this time he accepted the drink to dampen his
throat.
"These were a bunch of backwoods barbarians who lived in the forest, enjoyed
drinking, killing and their own brand of independence, and fought the
Roman legions every time they came along. The tribes were always beaten-and do
you think they learned a lesson from it? Of course not. They just gathered up
the survivors and went deeper in the woods to fight another day, their culture
and their hatred intact. Their culture was changed only when they won.
Eventually they moved in on the Romans, captured Rome and learned all the joys
of civilized life. They weren't barbarians any more. The ancient Chinese used
to work the same trick for centuries. They weren't very good fighters, but
they were great absorbers. They were overrun and licked time and time again-
and sucked the victors down into their own culture and life.
"I learned this lesson and just arranged things so that it would happen here
as well. Temuchin was an ambitious man and could not resist the temptation of
new worlds to conquer. So he invaded the lowlands when I showed him the way."
"And by winning, he lost," Kerk said.
"Exactly. The world is his now. He has captured the cities and he wants their
wealth. So he has to occupy them to obtain it. His best officers become
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
