William Forstchen - Down to the Sea

He forced himself to stare up at Garva and not back down. Jurak extended his hand. “Go on, Hawthorne.”

“Did you make this weapon?”

Jurak shook his head. “The machinery required, the lathes, to cut the cylinder to such perfection, even the refining of the steel-you know we couldn’t do that and keep it hidden for long.”

“Then if you did not make it, how did one of your warriors come to possess it? It’s not sized to a human. It does, however, fit your hand perfectly.”

Jurak looked straight at Vincent, but did not answer.

“The Kazan. Is that it?”

There was a long silence. Abraham turned his gaze away from Garva, again focusing on Jurak. He wondered how one learned to read them, to understand the nuances of gesture, and found it impossible. Always there was that impenetrability he had heard his father speak of so often.

“They are fifteen hundred leagues or more from here,” Jurak finally replied, waving vaguely toward the south.

“And twelve hundred of those leagues are ocean, which they know how to sail. Have you been in contact with them?”

Jurak actually smiled, but said nothing.

“Is that from the Kazan?” Vincent pressed, and though Abraham’s command of the Bantag slave dialect was far from good, he could clearly catch the tone of anger and even of threat in Vincent’s voice.

“Given how this conversation is progressing, I’d certainly take pleasure in meeting these Kazan,” Jurak replied, leaning forward menacingly, the revolver in his hand now almost pointed at Vincent.

Abraham looked up to the riders who, throughout the meeting, had remained motionless on the ridgeline behind them. He could see that they were intently watching the exchange, and more than one was shifting. Several had old rifles from the war out of their saddle sheaths. He could sense their eagerness, their hope that something was about to explode.

“The possession of that weapon…Vincent continued, ignoring the implied threat in Jurak’s gesture. “If there is contact between you and the Kazan, I must urge you to step back.”

“Why? Is there something about to happen between you and them?” Jurak replied, the slightest of mocking tones in his voice. “If so, it could prove most interesting for the Bantag.”

“Don’t get involved in it, Jurak,” Vincent replied. He sounded almost as if pleading, which Abraham found uncomfortable, but then he realized that it was a heartfelt warning.

“I don’t want another war with you. We fought our fight. We don’t need another such bloodletting, because if there is, we both know the end result.”

Jurak grunted and shook his head. As if bowed under with weariness, he slowly stood up and stretched, then stepped closer to Vincent.

Abraham realized that at last he was seeing anger-the flat nostrils dilating, mane bristling slightly along the neck, the brown wrinkled skin shifting in color to a brighter hue. “Human, we are not slaves. We are not cattle.”

He said the last word in the old tongue, the meaning of it quite clear.

Vincent stood up as well, though the effect simply made the difference in their size more pronounced. Hawthorne barely came up to the Qar Qarth’s chest.

“If they are out there,” Vincent said, “stay out of it. If we do find them, and there is a war, stay out of it. I tell you this not just as a representative of my government, but as a soldier who once faced you in battle. We do not want another war with you. You have nothing to gain by it except slaughter.”

“We have our pride,” Garva interjected.

“Silence!” Jurak shifted, gaze locked on his son for a brief instant, and yet Abraham wondered if he was indeed angry, if the son had not spoken what Jurak felt.

Jurak pointed the gun straight at Vincent. “This weapon proves nothing to me other than your fears. Your fear of a Horde you cannot even find; a fear of us, a fear of yourselves.” He laughed darkly. “You are afraid of becoming like we once were, aren’t you? Your pity stayed your hand, and now you are afraid.”

“Pity?” Vincent cried. “In the name of God, we were all sick of the killing. Remember, it was a human, a cattle who saved your life from that insane animal, the Qar Qarth of the Merki.”

There was a flicker of doubt, of sadness, on Jurak’s face. “Yes, Hans,” he said quietly.

“Then in his name, stay out of this. I’ll see what I can do about expanding your territory, perhaps even easing the restrictions on making machinery, as long as it can’t be used for weapons. I’ll do that in the name of Hans and on my honor as a soldier.”

“You would do that, Hawthorne. I have heard of this religion you once believed in, this thing called Quaker. Tell me, do you still have nightmares over all whom you’ve killed?”

Vincent stiffened and then stepped back. “I’ll forget that question,” he said, his voice filled with icy menace.

Jurak nodded. “I offer apology.”

Vincent, struggling for control, could only give a jerky nod of reply.

“There is nothing else to be said here today,” Jurak announced. “We understand each other. I have begged, and you have threatened, and now we understand.”

– “I have not threatened,” Vincent finally replied, his voice strained. “I have tried to explain things as they are.”

“As have I.”

“My adjutant will deliver a written statement to your camp tomorrow, detailing our understanding of what transpired today. Let us ponder what we’ve discussed and agree to meet again tomorrow or the day after.”

“You have such a love of things in writing, you humans. My old world was like that, too. It is one of the few things about it I don’t really miss.”

“If there is anything else you wish to communicate, I’ll remain camped here for a while.”

Jurak looked at him warily.

“By the treaty signed between us, I and an appropriate escort have the right to traverse your territory, though I would prefer if I did so as an invited guest who has received your permission.”

“My permission?” Jurak laughed softly.

“This is, after all, your land.”

“By your sufferance.”

“I wish you saw it differently.”

“How can I?” There was an audible sigh. “You humans, how can you know what I think? You know nothing of the world I came from, where we were the sole masters. The things I knew there, about the history of our greatness, the half-formed knowledge I still carry of weapons that could sweep you away in a single day, but which I do not understand how to make. Tell me, on your old world, did you not have nations that subjugated and annihilated others solely because they could?”

Vincent did not answer.

“I see that here now. No matter what your intentions, your sense of honor, as you call it-the fact that you and I can in some way respect each other as two former enemies-will not change the inevitable. I know how such things must always end.”

Vincent sadly shook his head. “The better angels of our nature,” he whispered.

“What?”

“A saying by our president back home, the one this young officer”-he nodded toward Abraham-“was named after. He once said that. I wish we could be touched by that now, Jurak.”

But then he pointed at the revolver still in the Qar Qarth’s hand.

“If that, and what it implies, does not unravel everything.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned away and walked to his mount.

Abraham remained where he was for a few seconds longer, looking at the two.

Garva was rigid, gaze fixed on Hawthorne’s back, and he sensed that if the revolver had been in this one’s hand, Vincent might very well be dead. Garva, realizing he was being watched, looked over at Abraham.