Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

As the scarlet-spiked glory of Odin’s Sea began to diminish far above, he farsighted the troopers of the Pholas and Zelda regiment breaking cover from the spinneys beyond the valley where they’d gathered during the night. They were supported by provincial militiamen from Plax and Tives. The men moved silently, like a black stream winding around the soft knolls and hummocks of the grasslands, out of farsight from the sentries within the valley. Edeard concentrated on subverting the ge-eagles gliding high above, insinuating his own orders into their sharp, suspicious little minds. That left just the fastfoxes. He was too far away to help with them. Brawny ge-wolves and fast ge-hounds slunk forward, accompanying the marauder groups of sheriffs and Wellsop rangers whose control over their genistars was second to none.

“Go,” Edeard’s directed longtalk urged Dinlay.

The Lillylight and Cobara regiment, along with militias from Fandine, Nargol, and Obershire, emerged from their forward positions to the west of the valley. It was the Nargol troopers and their unfettered eagerness who had been the problem the second time around; since then Edeard had emphasized how important it was to keep them moving along the planned route. Colonel Larose had done a good job keeping the provincials in line ever since; ignoring their muttered resentment about city folk lording it over the countryside.

With the assault under way, Edeard mounted a ge-horse that the Eggshaper Guild had sculpted purely for speed. His ebony cloak swirled around him, flowing across the saddle before rippling above the beast’s hide. Felax and Marcol scrambled onto similar mounts on either side of him. He didn’t have to say anything to them; his mind urged the ge-horse forward at a gallop, and the young constables followed.

The three beasts thundering over the grassland in the cold silence of the ebbing night sounded incredibly loud to Edeard, yet he knew they were too far from the valley to be heard. Up in front of him the troopers were an unstoppable Swarm as they converged on the valley.

Finally, the alarm was raised by the bandits. Those sentries still awake shouted to their armed comrades for help, only to find them lying in a deep unnatural slumber, their weapons gone. More shouts and frantic longtalk roused the rest of the sleeping group.

So far, so exactly as before, and this time going according to plan.

Fastfoxes flittered silently along the valley with the speed of hurricane clouds. The invading militias urged their ge-wolves on ahead. Along the top of the valley, troopers fell to the ground, their pistols held over the edge. Shots were fired. Ge-wolves and fastfoxes clashed head on, powerful animal screams reverberating across the grasslands as gray light crept over the dew-soaked ground.

The Pholas and Zelda regiment reached the far end of the valley and began to follow their ge-wolves down into the deep narrow cleft. Dinlay and Argian were close to the front, using their farsight to expose anyone with the concealment ability. Most of the bandits could perform the trick. Edeard held his breath, the memory of another deep gully on another night stirring in his mind. This time would be different, he promised himself; this time he could guarantee there would be no surprises.

Troopers along the top of the valley provided a thick covering fire for their comrades sweeping forward below. As always, the Gilmorn gathered his stalwarts together in a tall fortresslike outcrop of rock. They still had their ordinary pistols and fired ruthlessly at the advancing troopers. Concealment made it hard for anyone to return fire with any accuracy. Argian hurried forward to assist the troopers closing in on the outcrop.

Edeard arrived at the head of the valley and dismounted. He refused to rush forward even though it was what everyone was expecting. His farsight observed troopers rounding up the bandits who had surrendered and isolating the few who still resisted. Then it was just the Gilmorn and his cadre left offering resistance. Dinlay and Larose moved the militiamen forward cautiously; men wriggled on their bellies along small clefts in the land and dashed between convenient boulders. Within ten minutes, the Gilmorn was completely surrounded.

As Edeard made his way along the stony floor of the valley, he passed groups of smiling troopers hauling their captives along. Several were men from the tribes that lived in the wildlands: beyond Rulan’s boundaries. They were just as he’d encountered them all those years ago on the caravan back from Witham: ringlet hair and bare chests caked in dark mud that was flaking off. They glanced at the Waterwalker with sullen expressions, their minds tightly shielded. In all the clashes over the last few years, Edeard had never seen one of them wielding a rapid-fire gun; those weapons were possessed by the Gilmorn’s people alone. He halted one of the tribesmen escorted by five wary troopers, a man he guessed to be in his late fifties though with none of a city dweller’s laxness about him; he had pale gray eyes that glared out of a face that displayed all the anger and defiance his mind refused to show.

“Why?” Edeard asked simply. “Why did you join them?”

“They are strong. We benefit.”

“How? How do you benefit?”

The older tribesman gave Edeard a superior snort. He gestured around the grasslands. “You are gone. Even now you will never return. This land will be ours.”

“All right, I can see that. I can even understand how the killing and destruction becomes a perverted addiction for some of you. But why these lands? There are lands unclaimed to the west. Land with forests and herds to hunt. No one even knows how much land. Why ours? You don’t farm. You don’t live in stone houses.”

“Because you have it,” the tribesman said simply.

Edeard stared at him, knowing he’d never get a better answer. Nor a more honest one , he thought. He was looking for complexity and purpose where there was none. It was the Gilmorn and his kind, the remnants of Owain’s ruthless One Nation followers, who had intent. The tribesmen were simply useful innocents who’d been duped into an allegiance they had never fully comprehended.

He dismissed the escort with a curt wave of his hand, and the tribesman was dragged off to the jail pens that were being established up on the grasslands.

“We should get down there,” Marcol said eagerly. The young man’s farsight was sweeping over the fortress outcrop, exposing the concealed bandits with ease.

Edeard did his best not to grin. Marcol’s psychic abilities had developed considerably since the day of banishment, almost as much as his sense of duty. He was a devoted constable and utterly loyal to the Grand Council, yet there was still some of the old Sampalok street boy in there. He was spoiling to join the fight.

“Let the militias have their moment of glory,” Edeard said quietly. “This has been a hard campaign. They deserve to be the ones ending it all.” That was true enough. For eight months the forces of city and countryside had been allied, chasing the Gilmorn and his remaining supporters across the provinces farther and farther to the west until finally there was nowhere left to run.

“Politics,” Felax said with a disgusted grunt.

“You’re learning,” Edeard said. “Besides, you two have nothing to prove, not after Overton Falls. I heard the daughters of those caravan families made their appreciation clear enough.”

The two young constables looked at each other and shared a knowing smirk.

Down by the outcrop, Larose’s longtalk was delivering a sharp ultimatum to the Gilmorn. They were outnumbered fifty to one and completely surrounded. They had no food. Their ammunition was almost gone. There was no help coming.

Edeard wasn’t convinced that was quite the right thing to point out to a merciless fanatic like the Gilmorn, though in truth, they’d never reached this point of the assault before, so he didn’t know what would work.