Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

"Not really."

He shrugged. "Nothing spectacular. And most of it's long forgotten. But there's one episode, from two centuries ago, that was passed on from generation to generation. My family was in Denmark during the Second World War. They lived in Copenhagen, as a matter of fact, the same city where Jens was born."

Julius pointed down the slope to the young warrior.

"I stand here today because of his ancestors." His voice suddenly shook with anger. "Damn your fears, Indira! Damn them all to hell! "

His words were like a sudden, brilliant ray of sunlight, shattering all the darkness of the future. The nightmares fled from Indira's mind, gibbering in terror; and new visions came.

She remembered the small nation which, conquered and occupied, had still managed to save almost all its Jews from the Nazi butchers; had, through the unorganized and spontaneous actions of thousands of ordinary Danes, smuggled the Jews to safety. The blond-haired, blue-eyed people who had hurled defiance into the face of their racial brethren.

The kindness of that deed, toward a people of a different race, had come from the common pool of human decency. But the courage had come from their own history, and their own legends, and their own heritage.

They too had remembered Barbarossa. And if the Germans had chosen to remember the sword of the conqueror-had even named their brutal invasion of Russia after him-the Danes had chosen to remember the shield of the lawgiver.

The Nazi vision, she knew, had been closer to the truth of the past; but the Danish vision had been true to the future. If, in reality, kings had been unjust tyrants, yet, still, it had been within the shell of kingship that nations forged their justice. The kings were gone, long gone; but justice remained. And if the kings had been hard as iron, the justice was harder still. For justice had been long in the making, and it was not a feeble reed. It was the gleaming steel sword Excalibur, born of ancient dreams, shaped by myths and legends, forged by human struggle, and tempered in the blood of centuries.

As Indira watched the battle unfold below her, she felt as if her mind were split in two. One half observed the present carnage-attentively, coldly, objectively. The other half ranged across the breadth of human history, like a shaman taking the form of an eagle, spotting all the possibilities of the future. And, finally, leaving all fear behind, filled with the joy of flight and the glory of distant vision.

Joseph's powerful baritone suddenly rang above the din of battle. Refocusing her attention, Indira saw that Joseph had sent Takashi's platoon plunging into the fray. The Pilgrims had finally arrived, and were taking their place before the Utuku center. Takashi's platoon made a sudden lunge. The Utuku drew back, clustering their shield wall. The feint had succeeded, and Takashi's platoon was now racing across the enemy's front, toward the east.

As planned, the warriors of the Utuku center were paralyzed. The Pilgrims surged forward, to keep them immobile. The Utuku center would be completely out of the action when Takashi fell Indira looked back to the southeast.

– on the rear of the Utuku right. Whose attention was completely fixed on Ludmilla's confusing maneuvers.

Takashi was setting an even more brutal pace than Ludmilla. He and his warriors seemed to fly across the ground, as if possessed by a determination to match the exploits of Ludmilla's platoon.

"Andrew, take a note. We must give each platoon a name, or a number. Some title by which they can be remembered, and to which their soldiers can identify. In human history, that was called the regimental tradition. It will help develop the morale of the army."

"Yes, Indira."

A minute later, the slaughter began. Watching the ferocity with which Takashi's platoon ripped into the Utuku, Indira felt a moment's fear that they had forgotten what she had told them.

But, again, the commander on the spot had simply gauged the timing better. When they broke off and raced away, not one of the human warriors was more than slightly scratched. But they left a mound of bodies behind them.

"Andrew-that note. The one concerning low-echelon tactical control."

"Yes, Indira."

"Carve it in stone. Better yet, cast it in bronze."

Ludmilla's platoon now copied Takashi's maneuver, from the other side. Lunge in, at a speed which was almost incomprehensible to the gukuy, and butcher the front ranks. Race away before the ranks behind could overwhelm you with their numbers.

Working from two sides, Ludmilla and Takashi's platoons were ravaging the Utuku right. Their javelins were now used up; they were wielding the assegai. Fifteen hundred gukuy warriors were now nothing more than a hooting mob, milling about in confusion, their mantles rippling red and ochre, while less than two hundred and fifty human warriors continued their systematic slaughter. Only three human casualties had been suffered so far-and Indira had been relieved to see one of them hobbling off the field under her own power. Winny Mbateng, she thought it was.

Thank God. Even if your daughter's crippled from the injury, Janet, there will be a place for her. Adrian has been howling for help.

Indira saw an Utuku piper take aim at one of the human warriors. She caught her breath-then released it a moment later, when the piper's aim was thrown off by the press of the mob around her.

It's ironic. The gukuy consider pipers nothing more than auxiliaries. But they're what I fear most. Those darts have a range of thirty yards, blown by a gukuy with a powerful siphon. And they're quite accurate within half that distance. Light, of course. Even against a thin-skinned human they can't do much damage unless they strike the eyes or the throat. The light armor which our warriors wear is probably enough to turn most darts, as well as absorbing some of the shock of a flail-blow.

But if they ever learn how utterly vulnerable we are to animal product "Ghodha-and Rottu. Do any gukuy armies use poisoned darts?"

Rottu's mantle remained gray, but Ghodha's rippled orange.

"No, Inudira," replied Rottu. "There are a few small clans of savages in a swamp far to the southeast who are reputed to use poisoned darts. But no civilized people does so. Not even the barbarians. Not even the Utuku. It is a foul abomination in the eyes of Uftu and Kaklo alike. And the war goddess of the Utuku as well."

Indira was simultaneously relieved-and intrigued. Goloku, in her teachings, had not attempted to deny or undermine the existence of the old religious pantheons. She had simply absorbed them within a new and profoundly more philosophical approach to reality.

Like Vedanta Hinduism. Sort of. Oh, stop trying to find an exact analogy, Indira. There is none. The Way is unique to itself-and better, I think, that any of the great religions of Earth. I can think of no Terran religion, at least, which from the outset based itself on the principles of dialectics rather than formalism.

She remembered the schismatic Patriarchs of the later Roman empire. The persecution of the Arian heretics, and the Nestorians, and the Monophysites. And the rigid Aristotelean logic of the medieval churchmen. And the Inquisition; and Bruno burning at the stake. And Galileo's trial.

Perhaps that much we can avoid. Ushulubang and I, together, can sow much salt in the ground of future dogma.

Then she remembered the statue at Fagoshau which Ushulubang had shattered with her flail.

But neither she nor I will live forever. And it is indeed true, as Goloku said, that beings will always lapse into the error of the Answer.

She straightened her slender shoulders.

But we can try. And, in failing, shorten the road to the future. And its pain.

And stop day-dreaming about the future! There's enough agony on today's road.