Лео Франковски - Conrad's Last Campaign

Conrad’s Last Campaign

Book Eight

In the

Adventures of Conrad Stargard

By

Leo Frankowski

And

Rodger Olsen

Published by Great Authors Online

Copyright 2014 by Rodger Olsen

Cover Images From

text: Knight's Spur, (c) 2005, frielp, CC BY 2.0

text: Mongolian Steppe, (c) 2009, Marked Do, CC BY 3.0

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author. Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Reluctant Crusader 9

Twenty Years Ago in China 13

From the Secret Diary of Su Song 14

Be Assured That Never Will I Try to Trick You 17

From the Secret Journal of Su Song, Part Two 29

“For God and Poland! We go to War!” 35

A Prince Among Men 44

Disaster in the Mountains 53

Moving up the River 62

We go Shopping 73

From the Secret Journal of Su Song, Part Three 97

Across the Sea of Grass 103

Betrayal. Dirty, Rotten Betrayal 106

The Second Betrayal 112

From the Memoirs of Duke Osiol 114

Wisdom from Conrad 130

Letter home from Captain William Orbitz 143

Conrad’s Diary Continues 147

Su Song’s Fourth Entry 156

Interlude in Uncle Tom’s Control Room 161

The Trip to Karakorum Begins 163

From the Secret Journal of Su Song, Part 5 172

The War on the Tundra 175

Karakorum at Last 192

Captain Stanislaw’s Tale 195

From the Secret Journal of Su Song, Part Six 205

Visitors are Coming for Dinner 206

Second Interlude in Uncle Toms Control Room 215

The Battle of Karakorum 216

Waiting for Our Visitors 225

From the Secret Journal of Su Song, Part 7 233

My Guests Arrive 235

The Waiting Game. 242

The End Game. 251

Post Game Highlights 259

Last from the Journals of Su Song 264

The View from on High 267

The Final Interlude in Uncle Tom’s Control Room 272

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those friends who, at our age, are slipping away. Leo Frankowski became one of those friends on Christmas Day 2008.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the extensive help given by Chris Ciulla. He was a friend and help to Leo both before and after his death.

His knowledge of the universe of Conrad Stargard is probably the best to be found anywhere.

Other Books

Mr. Frankowski’s estate has republished Lord Conrad’s Crusade and Copernick’s Rebellion . Both are available in hard copy or Kindle format at [Amazon.com] and in EPUB format at [www.barnesandnoble.com].

Mr. Frankowski’s co-author, Rodger Olsen, has published an apocalyptic novel, The Empire of Texas . It is also available at [Amazon.com] and [www.barnesandnoble.com].

Mr. Olsen’s style of writing is very similar to Mr. Frankowski, so if you enjoy Leo’s work, you may also enjoy the Empire of Texas .

Foreword

When Leo Frankowski returned from Russia in 2006, he considered the New Kashubia series to be finished and was willing to put it aside. He had published Lord Conrad’s Crusade during his last year in Russia, but felt that Conrad’s adventure was not resolved.

He began working on the final chapter of Conrad’s life soon after his return to the States. His age and declining health made progress slow, but he was eventually able to complete the plot outline and write part of the final book.

Leo and I had agreed that Conrad would grow and change a little in the last book and find a way to noble retirement or noble death. You will have to read the last chapter to know which path was chosen.

Unfortunately, Leo died before finishing the text. On Christmas Morning 2008, he died suddenly and peacefully from the effects of various drugs that he was prescribed.

I had been helping him with his writing for a number of years and had sat with him for many hours as he worked out the plot of the final book. At that point, virtually all of the writing had been done by Leo. At the time of his death, my only contribution was the opening prologue.

However, the book was well started and the plot known and Leo wanted everyone to know what happened to Conrad. I was familiar with Leo’s writing style, having been coached by him to enable me to contribute to earlier writings, so I finished it.

I hope you enjoy it.

As those of you who have read the prior stories probably noticed, Leo was almighty careless in using his duodecimal system. The terms gross and dozen were used consistently, but Conrad often lapsed back into the base-ten numbers of his childhood. We were rarely certain if thousand was decimal 1,000 or 1,728 or whether fifty was 5*10 or 5*12. I have standardized the translations in this book. People using a base-twelve system would tend to think and build in gross and dozen and those terms have been preserved. All other numbers are now consistently base-ten, i.e. fifty is 5*10.

Prologue

It was still full dark when Megan whispered in my ear, “It is almost morning, your grace.” She and Terry were pressing their bodies against mine and gently massaging my muscles to wake me. Gradually, I became aware of the sounds of a camp waking up. Muffled voices, the sounds of clattering pots, and footsteps filtered into the tent.

Soon they were dressing me in my armor. The golden armor gleamed this morning and under it my muscles were still hard and lean from the months I had spent in a slave pit. As my bodyguards dressed me, others were trying to feed me. I ate very little. A too-full belly can slow down a sword arm.

I had said my morning prayers, recited my oath and was ready to leave when the false dawn glowed outside. By the time full dawn came, I and my personal lance were approaching the battle lines.

I thought that I would be the first there, since the attack was not scheduled until almost an hour past dawn, but three companies of my men awaited my arrival.

The Africa Corps spread out on my left. They were battle-tested, but some of them were only months away from having been slaves in a medieval world. They were outfitted with our standard armor, but some had doffed their helmets, preferring to wear their brightly colored Mohawks into battle. Most held rifles or pistols, but some had drawn their swords instead and a few even preferred lances.

The Christian knights formed the right wing, the “place of honor.” Most held modern weapons, but the profusion of armor styles, helmet plumes, and heraldry meant that they would never be mistaken for a modern army. We kept them as a favor to the pope. Actually, with their lousy training and poor discipline, they were the most useless part of the army. All you could do with them was to yell, “The enemy is that way: charge,” then get out of the way. They had demanded and been granted the honor of leading the charge today.