Conrad Starguard - Flying Warlord Part 7

Then we got word that Kiev had fallen, the walls had been stormed, and the armies slaughtered. The tales we heard from the few survivors were ghastly. They told of old people tortured, young women raped, and children hunted down in the streets for sport.

No one doubted that we were next on the list.

FROM THE DIARY OF TADAOS KOLPINSKI.

I was Komander Tadaos now, and making sixty-four pence a day! It makes me wish my father could have lived long enough to see it! I had eighteen boats on the Vistula, and twenty-two on the Odra.

'Course, only three of those Odra boats was real fighting boats, two operating above Wroclaw and one below it. The rest were low, skinny things that could make it under the bridges at Wroclaw. There weren't any bridges on the Vistula, nor were there any on any of the tributaries that you could get a fighting boat up, but those Wroclaw bridges was a pain!

We could build new bridges wide and tall enough. Baron Conrad's book on them showed just how. But the d.a.m.n city father (mothers, the lot of them) wouldn't hear of tearing their old ones down.

I figured that with twelve barrels of gunpowder, we could do in one of the bridges some dark and stormy night and claim it was lightning, an Act of G.o.d, but the baron wouldn't let me do it. He said it would take thirty barrels, easy, and the rubble would likely block the channel. And he said that the duke wouldn't like it, so that ended it.

But someday, I was going to find a way of getting me them thirty barrels and trying it!

All the boats was way overmanned, since we had to train crews for the new boats being built. Come spring, I was to have three dozen on the Vistula alone. What's more, we had a gas generator on all our fighting boats now, and limelights on top of the turrets. These lights had big reflectors that turned with the gun below them, and we could run and fight in the dark, so we needed night crews as well as those for the day.

We had flamethrowers now, too. These was a big barrel of pitch and wood alcohol in the bow with sort of a fire hose on the end. There was a lighter built in it, and when we put steam pressure to the barrel, we could squirt fire for six dozen yards! 'Course, it only worked for about a minute, but that was a lot.

We was always doing target practice, mostly with the Halmans and the peashooters, since they didn't use no gunpowder and was cheap to shoot. The peashooters didn't draw nearly the steam now that they used to, and I was pretty proud of that, since it was my doing. I came up with a valve that shut off the steam, just for an instant, while a new ball was dropping into the chamber. It was a little like the valve the baron designed for the bottom of the Halmans, which let loose a blast of steam when the round hit the bottom, only sort of backward. Anyway, the baron, he was tickled red over it cause now we could fire all four peashooters at once and still power the boat. I got two thousand pence as a bonus and they named that valve after me.

But like I was saying, there was a target range set up about every two miles on the rivers, and we used them' These targets was set up by young boys after the baron wrote a magazine article asking them to do it. They was pretty good at coming up with interesting things to shoot at, since they wanted us to do all the shooting we could. See, the ball bearings used by the peashooters and the dummy rounds from the Halmans was all reusable. After we'd go by, the kids would be out there digging them up so they could turn them in for the reward on them. Since we gave them about a quarter of what it would cost to make new ones, everybody came out pretty good.

Then somebody found out that the Halmans could shoot a potato about as well as a dummy round, and we got to sh.e.l.ling the other steamboats as they went by. The baron told us to stop before somebody got hurt, but everybody on deck was required to wear armor, and no potato ever hurt an armored man.

Why, after coming out of a Halman, they was half cooked, anyway. And moving targets was more interesting, so that order sort of got misplaced.

I was having a row with my wives. They both got pregnant at the same time again, which they'd agreed not to do, and I was finding myself having to do without. Can you believe that? Two wives and still going h.o.r.n.y?

Well, they said it was as much my fault as theirs, it taking two to accomplish anything, but you know how women like to come up with excuses. Then they said that at least this time, they'd both be mine, and I hit the ceiling! I said that the first two was mine, and I'd wallop anybody who said different!

Then I said that what with my rank and all, I was allowed a wife and four servants, and I was going to Okoitz to find me another one. They said that it took their permission, too, and they had to pa.s.s on any girl I picked. So we left two of the kids with a family at East Gate and we took one of the pa.s.senger carts to Okoitz the next time we had a few days off.

Well, you know I found me a pretty and willing girl in just no time at all, and so did they. The trouble was that they wasn't the same girl, and we had us another row about it. Finally we compromised and I took the both of the new girls on. But that's going to be the end of it, unless all four of them get pregnant simultaneous. If they do that on me, well, I'm still allowed one more, and after that I'll just have to get me some more rank.

Chapter Eleven.

FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD.

There were Mongols in Cracow, but they weren't invading just yet. This was a diplomatic party, and the duke wanted me and some of my people there to advise him.

We'd had plenty of warning about their coming, since they were spotted at one of our depots on the River Bug. The operator there got out a radio message fast, and she was bright enough to warn away the steamboats in the area. I don't think they saw any of the planes, either.

I knew that it was important to make as brave a show as possible, but at the same time I didn't want them to see everything we had. Word went out on the radio that the steamboats and airplanes were to avoid the Mongols, the guns were to be taken down and hidden, and that the radios themselves were not to be talked about.

I'd never publicized the radios, but I knew that scattered around as they had to be, there was no way of keeping their existence a secret. Operating principles were something else, but since few people knew them anyway, I wasn't worried.

In fact, I needn't have worried at all, since people who did hear about them didn't believe it. They'd believe in a steamboat because they saw it, and the same was true with the airplanes, which still had people running outdoors and pointing upward whenever one went over, but a machine that made sparks and talked to people miles away?... Nawww...

I wanted the Mongols to be afraid of us, but for the wrong reasons. There wouldn't be enough of Anna's mature children to make a difference in the invasion. Oh, they'd stand night guard duty and run messages, but there would only be thirty-three adult Big People by the time of the battle, and that wasn't enough to tip the scales.

Still, if I could make the Mongols worry about fighting a highly mobile cavalry force, they might conduct their strategy accordingly, and that couldn't do us any harm. Mobility was where we were weakest.

I collected all the Big People I could, twenty of them counting Anna, along with some of my main people, and rode to Cracow. I brought Sir Vladimir, Sir Piotr, and the Banki brothers, among others.

I brought Cilicia along, and I had the others bring their wives. We came in civilian clothes and without armor, my idea being to lend the occasion as little dignity as possible.

We arrived in the early morning, just hours ahead of the Mongol delegation. Duke Henryk met with me and asked me to do the bulk of the talking at the preliminary meeting, since I apparently knew more about the Mongols than anybody else.

"Just stand on the dais by my left hand, Baron Conrad. Should I want to talk to them directly, I shall signal you. But talk as you see fit."

A number of counts were up there as well, sort of an honor guard. The throne room was filled with gawkers, but all of my own people were there as well. This was supposed to be just a formal meeting, with further negotiations to be held in private. At least that was what the duke thought. I had somewhat different ideas, and the Mongols were way out in left field!

The Mongol amba.s.sador entered with twenty warriors at his back. Surprisingly, he spoke very good Polish.

"I have come-"

"A moment," Duke Henryk said. "First off, who are you? Are you a Mongol?"

"No. I am a Tartar."

The duke gave me a smug look, but the amba.s.sador continued.

"I am a Tartar but the great Ogotai Kakhan is a Mongol. They are slightly different tribes, like your Silesians and Mazovians."

"Thank you for clearing that up. Now, you were saying?"

"I have come to accept your submission to my lord, Batu Khan, and to the great Ogotai Kakhan, Lord of All the World!" He was bowlegged and he stank, but you couldn't accuse him of not coming to the point.

His head was shaved, leaving ridiculous tufts of hair on his forehead and behind his ears, but then military organizations generally adopt funny haircuts. He wore gaudy silk brocades that might once have been attractive, but now were grease-stained and filthy.

Yet he wasn't at all what I had expected. He didn't look like a Mongol! He did not have slanty, black eyes * They were green and Caucasoid. His skin, under the dirt, looked to be white, rather than yellow, and his hair was not black. It was red! And none of his men were "Mongoloid" either.

I Rather than answer the man, the duke glanced at me, so I said, "That's quite a statement. Why should we want to do such a thing?"

"Why? You will do it because you want to live!"

"We've been doing a pretty good job of living without the khan. Why should we' want that to change?"

He wasn't using any honorifics on me, so I didn't see why I should use them on him.

"You talk like a fool or a crazy man! All men must submit to the kakhan!"

"I'm a crazy man? I hope you realize that your last few statements sound like those of a rampant megalomaniac. But I repeat my question. Why should we want to do something as silly as bowing down to your kaka?"

"That's kakhan, you fool, and you will submit or our swords will take all your heads!" He drew his sword for emphasis. Apparently, he felt that I wasn't playing my role properly.

"Oh. With swords like that? May I see it?" He handed it to me. It was good Damascus steel, better than what most of the conventional knights carried. But I couldn't let him get one up on us.

"A pretty handle," I said. "Where did you steal it?"

"I won that blade at the Battle of Samarkand, when the fools there refused submission ' "

"Well, that's a bit far to go. Mine only has an iron hilt. May I test them?"

"Destroy your blade if you want!"

I drew my own sword. Setting the tip of his blade to the marble floor, I shaved a thin wire of steel off the edge of his sword.

"The edge is soft," I said, throwing the wire to him. Then I put my blade tip to the floor, edge up, and swung at it with his. His blade was cut in two. "The shank was weak. Next time, don't steal a sword because of its flashy mountings." I tossed the pieces back to him: The emissary was livid. This was not going as planned. "It is not weapons that win, it is the men behind the weapons!"

"You know, I've been saying that for years. That's why I know that we have nothing to fear from you people."

"The kakhan has the finest army in the world!"

"He has a bunch of undisciplined goat herders, suitable only for murdering helpless women and children.

True warriors need not fear them."

"Undisciplined? You lie! Choose three of my men."

"If you wish. That one, that one, and that one." I'd picked the three most gaudily dressed of his entourage, and I think I picked right. I must have singled out someone pretty important, since a trickle of sweat went down the amba.s.sador's cheek. I could see him weighing the loss of face against the loss of someone special. Face lost out.

"The first man you picked is Subotai Bahadur. He, like me, is sworn to report to Batu Khan. You must pick another. "

"As you like. How about that pretty little guy on the end?" I later found out that this man was the amba.s.sador's son, but the father didn't bat an eye.

He spoke briefly to the three men in what must have been Mongolian. Then he said, "I have just ordered these men to cut their own throats, as a demonstration of their loyalty and obedience to the kakhan!"

And those three men did it! One after another, they stepped forward, said some sort of prayer, drew their belt knives, and cut their own throats! There were gasps of horror and disbelief from the audience. I glanced at the duke and he looked a little pale.

If word of this got around, Polish morale would suffer. I couldn't let them outdo us, but I wasn't going to see if any of my men felt suicidal! So I laughed at him.

"Well, don't feel too bad about it," I said. "We have crazy people in this country, too. Of course, we try not to show them off in public when company is calling, but I suppose that customs differ. How about that one? Would he cut his throat, too?"

"Any true Mongol would obey orders!"

"Then let's see it!"

And d.a.m.ned if he didn't order it and the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d ended up bleeding on the floor along with the others.

"And how about that one?" I said.

"What are you trying to do?" screamed the amba.s.sador.

"Well, I figured that if we could get every Mongol to cut his fool throat, we wouldn't have to fight a war next spring." The room exploded in laughter.

"Were I not forbidden by my lord Batu to fight, I would kill you here and now!"

"It wouldn't be much of a fight, especially since you don't have a sword anymore. Why, any of our women could beat any of your fools with a sword. Even little Krystyana over there could take on any one of you, and she's had six children."

"Could 1, my lord? Could I really fight him?" Krystyana said as she eagerly stepped out from the crowd.

She was in court dress and so of course was unarmed, but she had borrowed her husband's sword with such vigor that Sir Piotr had a thin trickle of blood running down from his left ear.

"Well, I was just talking, Lady Krystyana. This is a diplomatic meeting, and not the place for a fight."

"Ah! You make a foolish boast and then you try to wiggle out of it! I say that you must back up your boast!"

"I suppose, if you insist. Sir Piotr, what do you say about this? She's your wife, after all."

"My lord, when she's in this mood, I've found it's best to let her have her own way."

"Very well then, pick your best swordsman," I said to the amba.s.sador.

"Let the lady choose her own executioner," he said with a greasy smile.

"I want that one," Krystyana said. "He's wearing the most gold, and I get it when I win, don't I?"

"To the victor goes the spoils, my lady," I said.

"Good! Of course, I can't fight in this silly outfit!" She said, as she stripped her clothes off. The Mongols were all wearing armor and she was proposing to fight naked!

At this time, Poland didn't have a nudity taboo, so a naked lady wasn't all that unheard of, but the duke had let it be known that he wanted a complete coverup in his own court, and thus far, no one had ever dared defy him. I glanced at the duke again, but he just looked up at the coffered ceiling.

The Mongol acted as if he was just going to walk up and murder her. Krystyana parried his blow easily and gave him a horizontal cut on the forehead.

This startled the man, and he started hacking in earnest. It got him nowhere. He might have been good at saber fighting on horseback, but his footwork was almost nonexistent. The parries used on horseback are different from those used on foot, and are slower, since on a horse you have the animal's neck between your legs and it gets in the way.

But mostly, he'd never seen a rapier before, whereas Krystyana had often fought rapier against saber.

She'd beaten me that way quite a few times.

So she played with him. She added a vertical cut to the one horizontal one on his forehead, making a perfect Christian cross. Then she put a cross on each cheek, and during all this had not taken a cut herself.

She was making the Mongol look like a buffoon, which was wonderful. She was savvy enough to realize that we had to take people's minds off the dead bodies on the floor.

The crowd was going wild, and the amba.s.sador was turning livid purple.

"She's making a Christian out of him!" Piotr yelled.

"Does that count as a Baptism?" somebody shouted.