Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

Indira scanned the battlefield. A vast scarlet wave swept across the mantles of the entire Utuku army, a tsunami of terror. The same color was everywhere, within seconds. And followed, moments later, by a cacophony of hoots and whistles. The Utuku ranks dissolved completely before her eyes. Most of the enemy warriors were still alive, but they were nothing but a panicky mob. Even as she watched, she saw an Utuku battle leader trampled underfoot by a mass of warriors seeking nothing now but their own lives.

Dimly, she heard Ghodha say, with a tone of great satisfaction: "The battle is won. And wonderfully! The Utuku have been defeated before, on occasion. But there is no record of them being routed. Today, we have done it!"

Wonderful, yes. New legends were forged this day, and will be chanted, again and again. And will give courage in the future. Courage we will need.

Courage I need now.

The next voice was the one she dreaded-that of Andrew MacPherson. Born in Scotland, not twenty years ago. Hardly more than a boy. The Chief of Staff of the Mother of Demons, and her army:

"What are your commands?"

She postponed the moment.

"Rottu-a question. I have asked it before, but… I will ask again. The Utuku warriors who have been recruited from other tribes. They can-"

Rottu immediately understood the question.

"Yes, Inudira. Their old clan markings will have been carved off their mantles. They can be easily recognized by those scars."

Rottu answered her next question before she even asked.

"And, yes, it is easy to determine which are recent recruits. And which have been long accustomed to the Utuku savagery."

The moment could be delayed no longer.

"Any of the recent recruits who surrender will be taken alive."

"And the others, Indira?" asked Andrew.

She thought of the Sixth Army, dying in the Russian winter. Nazis, some. Most-ordinary workers and farmers, many of them barely beyond childhood. Each of them a unique universe, never seen before, never to exist again; in all the eons of the galaxies. Her voice froze in her throat; until, far below, she saw Nukurren standing over her bleeding children, guarding them from the swirling chaos; and found the color gray.

"Kill them," she said, in a voice that never wavered. "Kill them all. Make certain they are all dead. Spear the wounded. Spear the mortally injured. Spear any of which there is any doubt at all. There must be no survivors from this battle, except the captive new recruits. Perhaps those can be salvaged. If not, we will kill them later."

The eyes which she turned on Andrew were like ice.

"Do you understand, Andrew? Not one survivor. No Utuku who can bring the tale of this battle back to the Beak. That monster must be kept in darkness, for as long as possible. We need as much time as we can create for ourselves, to prepare for the future battles. And-if this army simply disappears, even the most hardened Utuku warriors will be filled with terror. We will need that terror."

"I understand." A moment later, he was racing down the slope.

Indira turned away and began walking up the slope. After taking a few steps, she stopped. Julius enfolded her in his arms, and she began sobbing like a child.

Behind her, Rottu watched. Very carefully. She had never witnessed it before personally, but she had listened to reports from the Pilgrims who had spent time among the ummun. She knew she was seeing the ummun equivalent of brown grief. Dark brown, she judged. Very dark brown.

Satisfied, Rottu turned away. She had learned much, this day. Her report to Ushulubang would be long and full. And even the old sage would admit that some questions have answers. Answers, at least, which are good enough for the perils of the present.

The answer to one question was obvious. The Mother of Demons was, indeed, as Ushulubang had suspected, the mistress of the art of war. Rottu had thought the sage was probably correct, in this as in most things. But she had not been certain-until she watched triple-eighty ummun warriors destroy half an Utuku army.

But that was a small question. Now, she would be able to answer Ushulubang's big question as well.

She gazed down at the plain. Below her, the massacre was already underway. The Kiktu and the Pilgrims were methodically butchering the mass of the enemy, milling in stunned confusion, while the fleet warriors of the ummun apalatunush relentlessly brought down those Utuku who tried to flee.

She looked away-not from horror, but from the indifference of long experience. She was an old gukuy. Not as old as Ushulubang, but old enough. Old enough to have seen more cruelty and brutality than she could remember. The world had always been so. She had thought it always would, until she met Ushulubang.

I have your answer, Ushulubang. A good enough answer, at least, to lead us forward to the questions of the future. And the Way is no longer a narrow path. It has suddenly broadened into a wide road. Full of pain, as ever. But also, I think, a glory beyond description.

She looked up at the gray canopy of the sky, trying to imagine the things which the demons said lay beyond. Trying to imagine the splendor of that Great Coil of Beauty.

Indira might have found some small comfort, then, in that terrible moment, had she turned back. For she would have seen Rottu, for the first time in years, relax her shoroku. And allow rich shades of green-in all of that color's many hues-to wash across her mantle, like great waves in the sea.

When it became obvious that they were nearing their destination, Kopporu approached Guo.

"I believe we are almost there now, Guo. The place where the Mother of Demons waits for us."

"I hope so," replied the infanta. She was breathing heavily. For any gukuy, much less a mother, the long climb up the canyon to the top of the Chiton was tiring. Since they reached the plateau above, the way had become easier. But it was still an arduous march, even for an army hardened by many eightweeks in the Swamp.

At least we are done with that, thought Kopporu.

Yet, in some strange way, she felt a regret.

The swamp had been horrible, even beyond her worst dreams. They had lost many warriors there. Lost in mudholes; lost to predators, big and small; lost to hideous parasitic infections; and some, lost in ways they would never know. Warriors who simply-disappeared.

The worst time had come crossing the river. Gukuy generally avoided large bodies of fresh water-and almost never ventured upon the ocean. Terrible predators lurked in water. Small predators in any body of water beyond the size of a stream or little pool. In larger bodies-certainly in big rivers-the predators were huge and fierce.

They had lost almost double-eight warriors crossing the river. Most of them to poisonous water-slugs.

We would have lost many more, had it not been for Guo.

Of the many legends which would emerge from that incredible trek across the swamp, Kopporu knew, none would be chanted so often as the day the battlemother Guo slew the great kraken of the river. Kopporu herself had been paralyzed with fear, for a moment, when she first saw the monstrous form of the kraken plowing up the river toward the Kiktu army. Twice the size of the biggest mother who ever lived-the biggest owoc mother who ever lived-with palps as big as a gana and a beak like a cave.

But Guo had not hesitated. She had lunged down the river and battled with the monster, after ordering her flankers away. For once, Guo fought something bigger and slower than she, and the young battlemother had used the advantage shrewdly. Eluding the kraken's palps, luring it back downstream, she had given the army the time it needed to finish the crossing.

Kopporu looked up at the five little males who were proudly riding atop Guo's cowl, behind their shield of battle. Pipes in arms, as always.