Don't let them give you to the women. It had been a maxim on the steppe for as long as Haven had been settled. It had probably been a maxim back on Terra of legend. Dagor had never imagined, though, that it might be a maxim in the Citadel, too.
His notions of what war meant still came from the steppe: you gathered and you ranted and you rode and you hoped your enemy hadn't found out about you—which he probably had, because of all the ranting you'd been doing—and then, eventually, you fought. Things didn't work like that here. Titus led him to a room with—what did the Saurons call it?—a microphone in it. When he spoke, his words were heard in every corner of the Keep, reverberating from the ceiling speakers the Saurons used to summon one another: "We have an emergency. All personnel, draw weapons and ammunition from the storage lockers at the end of each hallway. Personnel at levels H and below, approach the doorway in subbasement C. Approach with caution and be alert for possible raiders emerging through the door. Personnel above level H, hold yourselves in readiness for orders, and stand ready to respond to possible unauthorized entrance into the Citadel through other egresses. Execute."
"Are there other ways into the tunnel than the one Carcharoth took?" Dagor asked.
"Certainly," Titus answered, "but none they are likely to find. Still, if we concentrate all our resources at any particular place, that is a virtual guarantee the Bandari will come at us from a different direction. Thus I shall wait, and let them commit themselves."
Calm, methodical, careful: 'inhuman' was the word that sprang to Dagor's mind. Dagor shivered. He felt sure in his belly he had chosen the winning side, and hated himself all the more for it.
"I shall draw a weapon," Titus said. "Will you also take one, aid in defending the Race of which you are a part?"
"I—will," Dagor said thickly. His father/brother had died at the hands of a Cyborg, and here he was going into battle beside one. But the merely human side of his ancestry had abandoned him, with curses.
He saw Titus eying him and had the eerie feeling the Breedmaster was looking inside his head, feeling his doubts, the twists of his thought, even before he was aware of them himself. But then Titus spoke: "This is an annoyance. It diverts me from my examination of the Threat Analysis Computer. Learning how and why it came to be in error will save the Race many difficulties in future."
Dagor thought the difficulties the Race was facing at present sufficient unto the day, but held his tongue. The less he did to draw the Cyborg's notice to him, the happier he was.
Down at the end of the hallway, metal doors had been flung open. He and Titus got into the queue of old men, women, even children.
A tall blond woman with the help of a blade-thin boy was passing out assault rifles and thirty-round clips of ammunition. She smiled at Titus. "Here, Father," she said.
"Thank you, Sieglinde," he answered. "I am glad we have weapons left for me and for Dagor here as well. New to the Citadel though he is, he has done the Race a service."
"Good." Sieglinde smiled again, serene, happy. Dagor got the idea doing the Race a service was something she embraced at a level deeper than thought.
Breedmaster Titus leaned down and spoke in battle-tongue to the young Sauron. The boy nodded twice, then left at a quick trot without a backward glance.
He clicked the clip into his weapon, flicked the charge lever off "safe," and chambered the first round manually, as he had to. Everyone on the steppe knew the theory of using an assault rifle; few ever got the chance to put theory into practice.
Boom! The Citadel was made of concrete and steel. Nonetheless, it shivered, as if from an earthquake. "That was from above," Sieglinde said. Her smile broadened as an elderly Soldier, one-eyed, and with a hook at the end of his right arm, silently presented himself. Wordlessly they agreed that he should distribute arms, while she, freed of that undemanding task, should find someone to fight.
Titus dashed down the hall. The ceiling speakers came to life again: "Personnel above Level H, move to the sound of fighting. Below Level H, hold your ground for the present." Sieglinde ran for a stairwell and bounded upward. Dagor followed her. He did not think even the swiftest man with no Sauron blood in his veins could have matched her speed he had trouble himself. But a lot of the women and even the boys and girls paced her.
Gunfire rattled ahead and above—mostly assault rifles, but a few black-powder weapons, too. Carcharoth might have been crazy, but he hadn't been wrong. The Bandari and their nomad allies were trying to bugger the Citadel from behind. Carcharoth hadn't lived, either. Dagor knew he'd have to wait till later to sort out how he felt about that. Another older man whom he had tried to take as mentor (as father, part of him whispered), had died.
In the stairway, Titus' voice spoke: "The invaders are at Level L and moving down. Estimate fewer than three hundred. Contain by sealing entrances to Level K and Level N, then exterminate. Execute." He sounded ever so faintly annoyed, perhaps still regretting that he couldn't get back to fiddling with the computer now, as he'd planned.
Instead of halting at each turn in the corridor and firing a burst around the corner, Sieglinde leaped through horizontal to the floor, her body aimed the new direction. Had there been an enemy in sight she would have fired a burst as she approached the top of her arc. As she gathered herself with tiger swiftness from the floor another Soldier was repeating her maneuver at the next turn. It was as if they had practiced this all their lives—as indeed they had, in squads and in platoons. The net result was that the main mass could pelt down the corridor as fast as their legs could carry them—until they actually met opposition. Small price that one Sauron might die in the process of that discovery; they were, after all, in a hurry. All at once, Dagor understood why there weren't any long straightaways in the halls of the Citadel: the fields of fire they gave would be too good. In the event nobody had to make that blind leap into live fire; they came to a wall whose opening onto the perpendicular was already bullet-scarred.
"Here is our perimeter," Sieglinde said, as if she'd found a tunic she was looking for. Not bothering to see if anyone carried a periscope, or even a mirror, she peered round the corner, quick as a blink. Her instructors would not have been pleased with this exhibit of youthful impetuousity. "Good. The first arrivals already have barricades in place." Hunching low, she ran for whatever shelter she'd seen. Dagor gulped and followed.
Bullets whined. Behind him, he heard the wet smack of one striking flesh. He dove behind an overturned metal desk, ever so cautiously looked out. Near the far end of the hall was another barricade. From behind it came cries of "Allahu Akbar!" and "Barak!" Barak his cousin/nephew . . . Would they have shouted his name were he not already dead, dead at the hands—at the flame thrower—of Carcharoth? Dagor bit his lip. But with bullets flying all around, with those men trying their best to kill him, what could he do but shoot back, if he wanted to live himself? Tears streamed down his face. "Allah preserve me," he whispered, knowing that Allah would not, and squeezed off a burst.
"Hold!" The word rang in Chichek's ears. She stared at the plainsfolk and Bandari boiling out of the passageway like bread dough with too much yeast. Hundreds of them, as Titus had warned. But there were hundreds with her, too, and more hundreds on the way. She did not know how many assault rifles and other weapons the Inner Keep held in reserve. Not everyone rushing to the fight was armed—but a Sauron woman without a rifle, could she but get close, was deadly to a man of the cattle, and would soon bear his weapon.
Was that her father? Allah and the spirits, it was, grayer and older than when he'd sent her off to the Citadel, but unmistakably Gasim.
Her finger shook on the trigger of her assault rifle. She had a bead on him. If she fired, she would surely slay him. How could she live with herself afterwards? But if she did not fire, how to live at all? She didn't think the invaders would stop shooting just because she did. And there was Gimilzor in the middle of the mad crush, fighting like the Soldier he would become—if the Citadel lived. And what was she to say to Sharku if she failed to defend their home, and her son, and herself?
Time seemed to stretch very slow and fine, as if she were a Cyborg. How she wished Sharku were here! He'd set things right. Then, all at once, time collapsed back in on her. After what had to be less than half a heartbeat, she screamed and fired.
If she'd done what she intended, a neat, short burst would have stitched its way across Gasim's chest. But the barrel of the assault rifle wavered, too—and after the first round, the magazine went empty. All the same, her father reeled backward, clutching his shoulder.
Tears blinded her as she fumbled for another banana clip. By the time she managed to stuff it into the assault rifle, it was too late. The enemy was upon her and her comrades.
She pulled the trigger anyhow. But she was new to war with automatic weapons, and had forgotten to yank back on the charging handle to chamber the first round in the magazine. She didn't know what was wrong; all she knew was that the rifle didn't work. It had a bayonet on the end of it. She tried to stab the nearest invader she saw, a tall, rawboned Caucasoid fellow with a face as stern as a mullah's.
He was fast and strong—not like a Soldier, but fast and strong enough, and also agile enough to dodge her thrust. Then he grabbed the rifle by the barrel. His face twisted. The barrel had cooled, but was still hot enough to burn. It didn't keep him from wrestling the rifle out of her hands.
She threw herself at him, not to get the rifle back, but because, just past him, Gimilzor was fighting with—and beating—a man three times his size.
The invader grabbed her, held her back at arm's length while she tried to kick him in the crotch. Somebody screamed "Afrit!" and pointed at Gimilzor. Somebody else gave her son a sharp stroke to the side of the head with a rifle butt. He sagged and went limp.
Chichek screamed then. "Hush, there," the man holding her said. "If you're Gasim's daughter, you ought to be able to figure out you're on the wrong side."
She tried to kick him again, with no more luck than before. "Liar!" she shrieked. "Should I love you bandits? You've just destroyed my life!" As he stupidly looked in the direction of her gaze, she stamped on his foot. He half-stumbled; his breath hissed out in pain. She broke free, tried to rush to her fallen son.
Gasim got to Gimilzor first. He clutched his grandson to him as if the boy were a bandage to stanch the bleeding from the wound his daughter had given him. Using Gimilzor as a shield, he broke away and staggered toward one of the chambers that gave off the passage. Light streamed into the hall from the room and others along the corridor, making up for some of that which was lost when fluorescent tubes were shot to fragments: those rooms looked out on the rest of the Citadel. Chichek went into them only at urgent need. Looking down from such a height made her giddy.
Now she did not hesitate, or rather would not have. But the invader who had seized her was made of stern stuff.
Instead of losing himself in his hurt, he snaked out a long arm and hauled her back. "War is not a game," he told her. "I am called Smite-Sin, and in you, woman and Saurons' whore as you be, I smite sin and sinner both." He spun her around and hit her on the side of the jaw.
The world grayed. Chichek staggered back, the iron taste of blood filling her mouth. More by reflex than by any conscious will, she lurched toward the hard-faced man, her hands clawing into fists.
"God has granted you the sovereign virtue of a hard head," he said; she heard him as if from very far away. He went on, "but I smite sin wherever I find it, again and again until it is gone. Also, I have not the time to linger over you. So—rest." Blurrily, Chichek watched the door behind which her father had taken her son slam shut after him. Like all doors in the Citadel, it was steel, or something stronger than steel. Getting Gasim out of there would not be easy. And her son, her son . . . Just then, the man who called himself Smite-Sin hit her once more. Gray flared into white, then drowned in darkness.
The night lamp cast pale shadows. Deathmaster Sharku came awake silently, barely opening his eyes, not moving, not changing his breathing. Someone was in the room.
"Sir."
He came fully awake. He worked to keep any expression from his face as he examined the figure sitting on its heels beside his cot, hands resting on thighs, pale gray eyes fixed on his face. It was an apparition out of Old Sauron, ash-fair and blade-faced even as young as it was—it could hardly have been more than seven T-years old, if that. A ghost? A Hero returned?
Superstition died, however, in the face of the apparition's scent. Stench, rather. There was an effluvium of lye soap and iron-hard water, and under it a ripe reek of sewers.
"The cloaca's still open, then?" Sharku inquired.
The child betrayed no hint of surprise. Sharku had a name for him somewhere in the files. He was pure Soldier blood, or close, with the true Nordic coloring, pale as ice—remarkable in a gene pool that had been tending heavily toward olive skin, dark hair, and epicanthic folds. "Yes, sir," he said. "Mostly, sir. I had to come out for a while where there was a blockage, and there were cattle raiding everywhere. That's why I'm so late, sir."
That much respect would have indicated parody in most children, but if this was who Sharku thought he was, he probably thought he was being casual. "I'll excuse you when I've received all your data," Sharku said. And after a pause, "Cadet."
"Cadet Harad of the inner barracks," the boy said, managing to sound both brisk and embarrassed by his failure to name himself properly when first reporting. Then, with a touch of pride, "Beast barracks, sir. The Nazgul."
Of course, Sharku thought. This child would be assigned to the best of them all, the one reserved for Cyborgs and for officer material. He had been hoping to see Gimilzor assigned there in a T-year or two, when he was ready.
Thought of Gimilzor made his gut hurt with longing to be back there, with the war relegated to nonexistence and life returned to its old round of extracting tribute, breeding Soldiers, and ruling Haven according to the tenets of Old Sauron.
He made himself focus on this boy who looked so little like Gimilzor, but sat and spoke and moved so much like him—so much as all the best of Soldier blood did. "You come from the Citadel," he said.
Harad nodded. "You've got a very nice camp here, sir. But one of your sentries is asleep. I would have cut his throat, sir, but I thought that might be exceeding my authority. I did tie his bootlaces together for him."
Sharku eyed the boy warily. The boy was deservedly proud behind a carefully cultivated, emotionless mask. Sharku thought that he might be grinning, in back there. Cocky little bastard. Good, too, at sneaking and scouting, if he'd made it this far, through the barbarians, through Nûrnen, and then past Soldier sentries. Sharku nodded solemnly. "Well done, Cadet. Your report?"
"Sir," said Harad promptly, snapping to attention without losing the knowing look. Cocky, Sharku thought. Yes indeed. And why not? He was the Breedmaster's grandson.
"There's an attack on the Inner Citadel, sir."
Great shattered Homeworld. "In what strength?"
"Unknown, sir. Battlemaster Carcharoth detected an attempt to enter the Inner Keep through the old postern tunnel. He went alone to intercept it, and left instructions for defense in case he failed. When he learned this, Breedmaster Titus sent me to find you and report. I left immediately." The boy stood at attention, waiting for questions or orders.
"Orderly," Sharku called.
"Sir," a sleepy voice answered.
"Send for tea. A lot of it. And send for Deputy Leader Mumak."
Mumak eyed the young Soldier sitting at attention on Sharku's bed, and frowned a question.
"Harad. Breedmaster Titus's grandson. He's just come from the Citadel."
"I think there are some sentries who'll need to explain themselves," Mumak said.
"Let it be till after. He has a message from the Breedmaster. The Inner Keep is under attack."
Mumak froze in the middle of whatever he'd been about to say. "What do we know?"
Sharku shook his head. "Damned little. Titus sent the boy to find us the instant he heard there was danger."
"What should we do?"
For once, right action was not immediately evident to Sharku. "Let's think about what we know. Carcharoth is crazy, but he's still a Soldier. If he thought there was a real danger to the Inner Keep he'd do something about it."
"Maybe," Mumak said. He was visibly trying to stay as calm as Sharku seemed, but worry flickered across his face and in and out of his voice. "But he sent us off to the south end of the Valley after you warned him. Sharku, he's really crazy. You can't count on anything else."
"If we give up this position, the war will go on a lot longer. And we'll lose a thousand Soldiers bashing past those earthworks. Maybe more."
"And if the Inner Keep falls?"
"Then there is nothing left worth fighting for," Sharku said heavily.
Mumak would hear no more; he held up his hand. "Deathmaster, command me."
"Four hours," Sharku said. "Wait that long to see if word comes in from Carcharoth or Titus. The men need rest anyway. Let them sleep four hours. Then we march on the Citadel."
"Who stays behind?" Mumak asked.
"None. We cannot leave enough to hold, and when we assault those earthworks the more we have with us, the fewer casualties we'll take. We go with everything we have."
"Down!" Sieglinde shouted. In the middle of insane combat, anyone else would have screamed. A grenade, gray smoke trailing from its fuse, flew down the corridor and exploded with a deafening crash a few meters behind her position.
Dagor had already flattened himself out on the battered floor. He hadn't been far from flat, anyhow. If you showed any part of your body, you'd end up with a bullet through it. The commandos who'd found their way into the Citadel were the best the Seven could send against it. The amount of slaughter they'd worked was astonishing. Most of the casualties were unarmed women, of course, but even so, the invaders were not your typical cattle by a long shot.
A shard of pottery from the grenade dug into Dagor's leg. He swore and looked back at himself. Blood flowed, oozed . . . stopped. Sauron genes again. If something didn't kill him outright, he'd just keep going.
Two women fired from a doorway. Another woman, and a boy who couldn't have had more than eight T-years, emerged from another doorway, dashed down the hall, and into the next chamber further up. Gunfire greeted them there. The woman reeled back; a burst had stitched her across the chest. But, a moment later, the boy waved: another room cleared. Containment was over. Counterattack had begun.
Bending double against rifle fire, Dagor sprinted up to join the lad. He glanced into the room, just for a second. Three commandos there, all shot. One of them still moved a little. The boy saw that, too, and put a round through his head. "Sorry, sir," he said to Dagor, no doubt thinking he was a proper Soldier. "It's the recoil on this piece." He brandished an assault rifle that seemed almost as tall as he was. "I'm just too damned light to control it properly."
"You did fine," Dagor said. He could get that much Sauron-flavored Americ out without giving away his accent, which might have made the boy shoot him for a commando. Gaping like a fool wouldn't help, either, though the boy (maybe with some help from the woman) had just taken out three of the best warriors the cattle could produce, and seemed chagrined that he hadn't made three perfectly clean kills.
"This is ugly fighting," the boy said. "Corridor by corridor, room by room." He shook his head; he hadn't been drilled out of all his emotions yet. Then he smiled showing a gap where he'd lost a baby tooth. "But we're getting the hang of it, I think."
"Good," Dagor answered faintly.
If he'd been in a mood for what the Bandari called pilpul, he would have reckoned the fight one of nature versus nurture. The commandos had been trained for war since they could crawl, and they'd been fighting since they weren't any older than the freckle-faced killer beside him. They were tough and hard and deadly. Their foes in the Citadel, aside from the few actual Soldiers, had far sketchier training—but they had their genetic heritage.
Little by little, nature was coming out on top.
"Fire and move," the boy said, perhaps to remind himself, perhaps to get Dagor off what the Saurons, for some reason, called the dime. He and, a moment later, Dagor, stuck their rifles out the doorway and fired down the corridor, making the commandos keep their heads down and giving more Sauron women and children a chance to move forward against the foe.
The tactic saved casualties. It didn't save all of them.
One of the women moving up took what had to be two or three rounds in the belly. She folded up, but then straightened and vaulted over the furniture the commandos had piled up as a barricade. More rifles snarled at her. Even so, she smashed one bearded fighter against the wall and broke another's neck with a kick before she went down.
"Come on!" the boy yelled, and ran out into the corridor looking for nomads to kill. The children were the worst, Dagor thought dazedly as he followed. They made small targets, they played at war as if it were a game, perhaps not understanding that when you died, you really died dead, and they were as strong as ordinary men and a lot quicker.
Dagor fired through the barricade. He must have hit something, for a man's head appeared over the top, face twisted with pain. The boy in front of him blew out the raider's brains, then leaped over the desks and sprayed bullets all around. Dagor leaped, too, fearing to let the child get the better of him and also fearing that, once he reached the commandos, he'd find some of them were men he knew. Oh, but betrayal was rotten meat. There on the floor lay Nazrullah, blood pooled all around him, the back of his head blown away. Dagor dashed for more cover; the commandos were still shooting from the next barricade further back toward the place where they'd made their entrance—the corridor stank of powder and the iron tang of spilled blood and the death-smell, like an overfull latrine. But even as he ran, he thought about the proud Afghan lord, gunned down by a lad half his size with a freckled face and a missing tooth. Who would have thought the forces of the Seven needed to be warned against children?