They felt the explosions in the hidden room, even through the stone walls of the Citadel.
Sieglinde left the birthing computer for another screen and activated it.
REPORT
The TAC blanked momentarily. HEAVY DAMAGE TO INNER KEEP
CASUALTIES?
ESTIMATED 20% +/- 3%. REVISED ESTIMATE IN TEN MINUTES
"We could have been there," Sieglinde said coldly. "Twenty percent. A thousand women and children your Bandari have killed." She turned back to the screens. "At least you've put a stop to them before they could do any more damage."
"Yes, we are cursed," said Sigrid in front of the screen that showed the mess hall in the Citadel's deeps. "So have we always been."
She levered herself up from the chair. The camera was focused on Sapper. He stood tall and proud, then fell. A boy near him crumpled to the floor. There were still others alive, climbing over one another to get at the lone centimeter of opening sustained by the Bandari woman's rifle barrel. It would do them no good. They were fighting, struggling like animals, using up what oxygen was left. What little came in would never be enough.
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," said Sigrid, who had read the scriptures of the Pale, and found them to be arrant, but occasionally compelling nonsense. She powered down the computer, shut off the screens, disconnected the precious battery. Sieglinde was still behind her, silent and watchful.
"I think," said Sigrid, rising with great care, "that it's time I used the couch out there."
"Past time, I'd say," Sieglinde responded, with a glance at the chair in which Sigrid had been sitting. Its seat was damp.
Her skirts were worse, clinging to her legs and rump. She had not even noticed when the waters broke. Concentration, she thought wryly, indeed.
Mumak hurried down the corridor toward the central elevator of the Command Center. Sharku had spent the past eight hours in the Infirmary waiting with Chichek by Gimilzor's bed. There were those Soldiers who thought such a display of concern for even a son near death showed a lack of discipline. Mumak was not one of them.
He had known Gimilzor ever since the Breedmaster had declared him birthed. On more than one occasion, watching the Deathmaster and his son, he had wished for a little Soldier of his own. Instead he had been blessed—that's what Breedmaster Titus and his own wife called it—with three daughters. Not a Soldier in the lot.
As he waited for the elevator to open, his fingers absently traced his new collar tabs. Senior Regiment Leader Mumak. Who would have ever thought he would rise so far? Not me, he thought. And none of it would have ever happened without Sharku.
They had been Cadets in the same barracks. Even as a young Cadet, it was clear that Sharku would go far. He had an analytical mind like a Cyborg, without the rigid mindset and inability to accept random data that characterized most Cyborgs. Sharku was insightful as well as analytical: an unusual combination of traits for a Soldier.
Maybe it was all the reading Sharku had done as a Cadet. It was impossible to recall a time when he had not had his nose stuck in a history or was talking about Sauron Role Models, such as Machiavelli or Alexander. Sharku had put up with a fair amount of hazing for it too, until he'd taken a few of the youngsters to the mat. After that, most of them had begun to listen to this peculiar Cadet with the odd notions and the propensity of quoting from the Founder's journals.
As Mumak stepped onto the elevator, he recognized Councilor Smaug. He wasn't surprised at his respectful congratulations. "Fine soldiering, Deputy. Tell Deathmaster Sharku that he has my support. I have supported him from the beginning; too bad Cyborg Carcharoth went dysfunctional. Overbreeding: it's probably infected the entire line. Look at Cyborg Rank Zold, the leader of the Revolt against the First Diettinger, or even Mad Sargun; all Cyborgs. They've been disordered since the Founding. It's time for a Battlemaster from the ranks."
"Exactly," Mumak said. Where were you, Smaug, when Sharku faced the Council and only Gimli the Archivist rose in his support? Carcharoth may have been mad, but at least he had the strength of his own convictions.
"Remember to tell him," Smaug called after Mumak exited the elevator.
"I will, Regiment Leader," Mumak said, wringing the contempt out of each word before it left his lips. Another parade Regiment Leader, like Regiment Leader Ufthak: the Citadel is full of them. None of you have ever commanded any unit larger than a company. At least until now—the first Grand Muster in two hundred years.
Mumak reached the Infirmary. Outside the door the twin giants stood as still as statues, assault rifles cradled in arms. Their eyes followed Mumak as he entered.
Sharku looked bad. He stood next to the bed, his eyes staring at the stricken boy, willing him to wake up and take command of his body. And how long has he been standing there? I bet he hasn't slept since truenight began, and I know he's only gotten two hours' sleep since we reached the Bandari earthworks. Soldiers didn't need a lot of sleep, unlike food, which they consumed in great quantities as fuel for their accelerated metabolism. But they did need some. Especially now, with so much work yet to be done.
Chichek, her head fallen to her breast, was asleep on the room's only chair.
Sharku greeted him with a nod.
Gimilzor, his head swathed in bandages, lay motionless on the bed. In one corner, sitting up against the wall, resting on his haunches nomad style, was Dagor; Juchi the Accursed's son, the wild Soldier who had first given Sharku evidence of the Bandari conspiracy. Sharku nodded to him; he had saved the Deathmaster's son. He couldn't think of a better bodyguard for his wife and heir.
Mumak signaled Sharku to follow him. Reluctantly, and with a shrug that showed he knew that watching his son would not heal his wounds, Sharku joined him in the corridor.
"How is the little Soldier?"
"No change."
"Sorry to hear that, sir. But you have to come. We've got support here: high ranks. Most of the rank and file are with us."
Sharku stood as if he hadn't heard.
"Sir, you've got to come take charge. The Councilors sing your praises, even more than they do for the Breedmaster's daughter. Chief Assault Leader Ufthak will keep an eye on his father. In the elevator, I was accompanied by old Smaug, and he promised his support. Not that we need it. Yet, Smaug is a good weather vane; he turns with the wind. Dammit, Sharku, you've got to listen!"
Sharku's look was cold, but Mumak didn't flinch. "Your orders, sir?"
"Did our courier return safely?" Sharku asked.
"Yes, sir. Assault Leader Vizgor just returned from the encampment. He had no trouble getting across their lines. The cattle are preoccupied it appears. Another of their great khans had died: Juchi's daughter, I believe. There is great wailing and lamenting in Nûrnen. I suspect Sigrid's disappearance has riled up the chieftains, too. Bad omens, or some such cattle superstition."
"How are our allies?"
"Deathmaster Ghâsh has finally arrived with the remainder of our force."
Sharku's eyebrows raised. "Will Ghâsh's return present a complication?"
"No. Once Ghâsh saw the ringwall, he couldn't stop damning Carcharoth and the Council. Guthril briefed him on the situation here."
"Good."
"Ghâsh agrees. Also, Guthril reports that Lagduf will move as you direct."
"Good. Once the barbarians begin their great assault, jihad, Cyborg Sigrid calls it, Ghâsh and Guthril can push them from behind. Past time for a final reckoning."
The controlled force of Sharku's words sent a chill down Mumak's spine. Were he one of the cattle chieftains, he would have crossed himself or fallen to his knees. Instead he wondered what new world they were about to bring forth.
Then they felt the blasts.
The explosions had come from the Inner Keep. They ran through the corridors toward that part of the Citadel, Sharku leading, with Mumak and the giant twins behind him. A tiny figure, a blond miniature of Sigrid, ran from the stairwell to tug at his sleeve.
"Mother says to come this way," she said.
Sharku frowned. "Signy, what are you doing here?"
"Sir, she said if you wouldn't come to say that Breedmaster Titus demands your attention," the little Cyborg said formally. "Please come."
"You'd better go, Deathmaster," Mumak said. "We'll investigate. I'll send someone if you're needed."
The Cyborg child led Sharku, not to the labor rooms as he'd expected, but to the segment of the women's quarters just past that, a sort of half-barracks, half-maternity ward where the new mothers and their offspring could rest and get used to one another before they got down to the serious business of living. Not that the Breedmaster's daughter was using it as such. When Sharku came in, she had a computer terminal going and was sitting at it with the Breedmaster behind her, frowning and saying, "Nothing here, either. We're going to have to manufacture it."
Sharku looked around for sign of a baby. There was a cradle in the corner of the small, cell-like room, next to the hard spare bed—that wasn't standard issue, he knew. Chichek had been in one of these rooms when she had Gimilzor. Her bed had been decadent by Soldier standards, big and soft and piled with blankets.
He had to stop for a few seconds. He told himself it was to let the two Cyborgs become aware of his presence, but he knew better than that. They'd heard him coming from half the Citadel away.
What he really needed was to deal with memories. Soldiers died. That was the law of war. The law of life, for the matter of that. But a Soldier as young as Gimilzor—
Something stirred in the cradle and started to squawk. The Breedmaster's second, non-Cyborg daughter came hurrying in from the door just beyond. She ignored Sharku completely and bent to scoop up the baby.
Sharku caught himself staring. He'd expected your normal Soldier baby: red, wrinkled, and tiny. The one wriggling and fussing in the tall blond woman's arms had a reddish cast to its skin, but that skin was a good deal darker than most Soldiers'. Cafe au lait, he thought, whatever that originally meant. He'd read it in an archive somewhere. In contrast to the dark skin, the fuzz of hair on the solid round skull was brassy fair. It was a big baby, too, for its age, solid and compact.
"Frystaat genes," said Sigrid next to him. He just managed not to jump like a cat.
She saw it anyway, of course. Her eyes held a glint of amusement. It wasn't cold, which startled him. Not for a Soldier, at least—and for a Cyborg it was downright warm. "I . . . heard about your experiment," he managed to say.
"Oh, yes," she said. "Everyone's heard of the fan Reenan in the Citadel. That will continue, you can be sure."
"He's a good, strong baby," said Sharku.
"Yes," said the Breedmaster, still at the terminal. "He won't be set out for the stobor."
There was irony in that, and a dangerous edge. Sigrid raised a brow at Titus, but addressed Sharku. "We've decided, pending Council approval"—which would be a rubber stamp, Sharku knew perfectly well—"that the age of infant exposure is over. This whole bloody war was the result of it. The Bandari have been adopting and raising our castoffs wholesale. Hereafter, if a child fails to meet standard, we have two choices. Keep it and raise it as a kind of sub-Soldier, or kill it. There will be no more Soldier-bred Bandari."
"No more Juchis," said Sieglinde from where she sat rocking the baby. "No more Chayas."
The Cyborgs nodded. Sharku kept his tongue between his teeth.
"What the Hell's going on down in the Inner Keep?"
"Bombs," Sieglinde said. "Sigrid's precious Bandari friends set them. The TAC says about 20% casualties." Sharku stood rigidly still.
"Yes," said Sigrid as if she could read his thoughts. "The world is changing. It almost changed us right out of existence. We pulled this one out of the fire in a very literal sense. The next one might not be as easy."
"There won't be a 'next one,' " Sharku said.
They were all staring at him, a row of near-identical faces, identical expressions: pale brows raised, pale eyes level.
"It seems," said Titus after a stretching moment, "that the Citadel has a new Battlemaster. What is it the old Terrans called a man hailed by his troops as commander in the field? Imperator?"
"A victim of necessity, maybe," said Sharku, and added carefully, "Breedmaster. But I was elected Deathmaster."
"Battlemaster," said the Breedmaster with equal care. "It seems you've acquired the office by default."
"Temporarily," said Sharku, "and with all due regard to the prerogatives of the Cyborgs in the Citadel."
"Of which we, and Sieglinde's son in the nursery, are the sole remaining representatives," Sigrid said.
"There is Cyborg Rank Bonn," Sharku said.
"So there is," Titus said. "So there is. Would your Soldiers accept him?" He smiled thinly. "A non-Cyborg Battlemaster is hardly traditional, but then neither am I. Or my children. And I am Breedmaster of the Citadel."
Sharku found that his heart was beating a fraction faster than normal, in spite of the controls he had on it. He didn't want the bloody job, but damn it, who else was there?
"We have been trying," said Titus, "to trace your bloodlines. Are you aware of the gap in the records along about the time of the Cyborg Rebellion?"
Sharku stiffened. "I am aware of that, yes, Breedmaster. Is there some reason why it's important?"
"Perhaps," the Breedmaster said. "You are undoubtedly descended from First Citizen Galen Diettinger. One of your lines descends from the Lady Althene, yes?"
"I hadn't been aware—" Sharku caught Sigrid's eye and shut his mouth. He started again. "It does?"
"Yes," said Sigrid, "it does. And that is a very convenient fact."
That was so blunt it was almost subtle. Sharku blinked twice as his brain clicked through the data. Cyborg he wasn't, but he wasn't stupid, either. Unless stupid meant letting his troops hail him Deathmaster without any input from the Council.
"At the moment," Sigrid said, "the Citadel is as close to anarchy as it's come in centuries. There's bloody carnage in the Inner Keep. Nûrnen has been sacked, and outside the walls is a reeking slaughterhouse and a howling pack of barbarian cattle. Inside is a population severely depleted by war and attrition, and we don't know the full extent of the genetic losses in the Inner Keep. We have no firm leadership. The Council has been little more than a ceremonial body for generations. The Cyborgs are gone, except for us.
"All we have are ourselves—and you."
Titus' deep, gravelly voice brought Sharku's eyes to him. Strange to realize that that particular quality and timbre wouldn't be heard again until Sieglinde's son Rhun grew up. Titus was the last adult male Cyborg, aside from Bonn, and he was hardly a candidate. There weren't any more of his generation, or of any generation but the very latest.
"Battlemaster," said Titus, "we believe we have found a solution to the problem of how to organize and focus the race. This war found us with our pants down—there's no other way to put it. We were arrogant, poorly prepared, and as close to easy prey for the cattle as we've ever been. We almost lost this war. We cannot afford to repeat the experience, even as a lesson to our young Soldiers in the perils of arrogance."
"Therefore," said Sigrid, as smoothly as if they'd rehearsed it, "we propose to return the race to its original strength, under strong and consistent leadership."
"Yours," said Titus.
"Not yours? You're the Breedmaster," Sharku said. "You"—he slid a glance at Sigrid—"are the Breedmaster to be. Wouldn't it be logical—"
"Logical, perhaps, but not possible," said Sigrid. "The troops are highly resistant to the prospect of further Cyborg leadership. They would rebel."
Since that was exactly what all his Soldiers were saying, Sharku could hardly argue with her. He didn't need to wonder where she'd found it out. Her father manned the TAC. The TAC knew everything.
"So why me?" he asked, probing further. "Why me in particular? If you're just looking for a figurehead, anyone on the Council would do a whole lot better than an officer promoted from the ranks."
"I doubt that," Sigrid said. "No one on the Council has led troops in battle and won their loyalty by it. Nor can any of them claim descent from the Lady Althene."
"Can I, really?" Sharku asked pointedly.
"That," said Breedmaster Titus, "can be taken care of."
"Sometimes, necessary symbols are not lies," said Sigrid, "even when they are not strictly factual. The Race needs a leader who can be symbol as well as administrator. We forgot that. The Seven didn't. Their whole war ran on symbols. Now we'll destroy them using Hellfire, the most symbolic and most terrible weapon of all."
"So you approve of using Gimli's old weapons?"
"They are needed. All Haven will remember. So will the Race—and the Soldiers are ready for a leader who will make the changes needed."
"I've long said we should restore what Galen Diettinger built," Sharku muttered. He frowned. "But I don't think—"
"Then don't," she said, so crisp she crackled. "Just take orders. You will be First Citizen of the Citadel. No one else is suitable."
"If I am First Citizen, why should I listen to your orders?"
Sigrid smiled. "You are not First Citizen until you obey that last command."
"No one else is suitably manipulable?"
Their answer was silence. He could feel their calm conviction that he'd give in.
The trouble was, he could see what they were getting at. It made sense. If they'd had a better candidate, he'd be right behind them pushing the man to come around.
But—
"Exactly how tight a leash do you expect to keep me on, once I'm officially in charge of the Citadel and all its goods and chattels?"
"You will do as you see fit," Sigrid answered, "after giving, or so we hope, due consideration to the advice of the Council and the Breedmaster."
"And the Breedmaster's daughter?"
She lifted her chin slightly. She wasn't pretty; a Cyborg wasn't, and this one had just given birth. She wasn't softly beautiful as her sister was. But there was something compelling about her, about the juxtaposition of her clear and apparent femaleness and her Cyborg strength.
A woman like no other—not on Haven, and maybe not anywhere in the lost worlds. Maybe not like anyone since the Lady Althene. "The Breedmaster's daughter," she said, "has a duty of her own to perform."
"As Breedmaster in training, yes," he said. "But for the rest of it—"
She cut him off. "The First Citizen has never been a solo office. There has always been a separate advisor and virtual coruler."
"Consort," said Titus. "Queen, if you will, since the cattle have a distressing propensity to look on our First Citizen as a king."
Sharku couldn't speak. Couldn't say anything at all. The only word in his mind was a name. Chichek.
Chichek, his flower of the steppe. Chichek, the mother of his dying son, by whom he'd hoped to get another son, and the sooner the better. Chichek who was cattle, no Soldier blood at all, and completely unsuited to be queen in the Citadel.
"There would have to be children," Sigrid said, "in order to continue the line, and to provide a new generation of rulers. I am prepared to do that duty. Your genetic material is good. You've proved yourself on the battlefield as both soldier and commander. Your fertility is likewise proven. Ideally, I would be paired with a Cyborg, but since that's no longer an option—"
"Unless you paired with the Breedmaster," Sharku was rattled enough to interrupt, "and concentrated the genes."
"No," she said without perceptible offense. "We're already skirting the limit—as witness my brother's succumbing to lethal recessives. An outcross is essential. Our files indicate that we two will cross well."
"But—" said Sharku.
Her eyes on him were clear, hard and yet somehow, in a cold way, sympathetic. "I won't require strict monogamy. Except legally, of course. What we do is symbolic. It's duty. We do what we must. If you want to keep a harem of tribute maidens, you may. I may choose to do the same with suitable males, whether of our race or of the cattle."
"That—" Sharku's throat closed. He forced it open. "That sounds reasonable enough."
"I knew you'd think so," she said.
He looked at her. No, she wasn't hard to look at. To think of her in his bed instead of warm, lissome Chichek, her lean whipcord Cyborg strength that meant he'd have to work to keep her pleasured instead of holding back as he always had to do with unaugmented women . . .
Duty, he told himself. Hard or soft, a Soldier did his duty. Good for him if it could be pleasure, too.
But Chichek—God, Chichek . . . would learn to accept her somewhat lessened status. She, after all, had no more choice in it than he.
He drew himself up. "Lady," he said. "Duty commands, necessity dictates—I won't deny either of them. But for me, for the man I am . . . I'd be honored to be your consort."
She bent her head. She had the manner, no question. She didn't even have to think about it. It was bred in.
"Good, then," said the Breedmaster. He sounded relieved, which might be a failure of control, and might not. He looked old—and that was disturbing. How long before he went Carcharoth's way and dreamed dreams and saw visions born of a senile brain?
Not now, Sharku thought. Not yet. Not till he could afford to indulge a fine madness. That much Sharku knew of the Breedmaster. But that it would be soon, he also knew. Otherwise Titus would have taken control himself, Cyborg or no Cyborg.
It took a great deal of courage for a man who held that much power to admit that he couldn't handle more. He'd never say it, nor would he thank Sharku for saying it for him. Best simply to know it, accept it, deal with it. The man who could have been king of the Citadel had abdicated before anyone knew there was such an office.
The man he'd chosen for the burden saluted him as officer to officer. "Breedmaster," he said.
"Battlemaster," said Titus. "First Citizen. Come now and claim your own."
The Council seats in the great chamber looked half-empty. The battles for the outer works, the Pass, and especially the battle of Firebase One had taken their toll among the older men who made up its membership, but the Soldiers' tiers behind him were packed—all the way up to the roof-level. Company guidon banners of First Regiment were massed in the first row. Above them much of the expeditionary force and the Citadel garrison were there, all but those with essential duties. The holo of Galen Diettinger behind the First Citizen's chair was cracked and scarred, and the banner above it was awry. There was dust everywhere, and cracks in the walls—but the Soldiers held Council here once again. And Sharku's First Regiment companies had brought their assault rifles. The weapons were grounded, but they were there.
Sharku concluded his report. "I request that Gimli arm one of the weapons known as—" he hesitated at the unfamiliar term—"a neutron bomb. I am told that four remain in the Vaults, with five of the class known as Hellburners."
The surviving Councilors looked at each other. "Nuclear weapons?" Ansel Diettinger said doubtfully. "Is that required"—a long hesitation, then grudgingly—"Deathmaster?"
Sharku nodded crisply. "It is needed. We could defeat this attack without it, but it would cost time we no longer have. We will face famine this winter, no matter what we do. I will not sacrifice good Soldiers when we don't have to."
A low mutter of approval came from the ranks of Soldiers around them.
"Casualties among our subject populations have been even heavier than among the Soldiers. We cannot increase our exactions from the surviving peasantry of the Administered Zone, because they'd starve. We need order soon, and we will need every remaining Soldier to provide it.
"The western Shangri-La is still in revolt; but it is the only large food-surplus zone within our reach. We must pacify it immediately, if necessary by driving the nomads loose in the Valley west into the rebel areas, and all our spare military capacity must be devoted to this."
"In short," he concluded, "we either destroy the horde before our walls immediately, or civilization—and the Race—in this part of Haven will pay a price I don't intend to pay."
A heavy silence fell over the Council, but everyone present remembered Sharku's last speech—the advice unheeded, that might have spared Sauron-on-Haven its brush with extinction.
"I call for a vote."
A heavy crashing came from the tiers above, as Sharku's men slammed their rifle-butts down in earthquake unison. The Battlemaster's face was as impassive as chiseled stone, but he felt a grim smile behind it. This too was not without precedent in the long history of the Race.
"By acclamation," Gimli the Archivist said. "Battlemaster Sharku is authorized to take all necessary measures." Nods of approval. "You do not rate our prospects highly," Gimli went on.
Sharku gave him a considering look; Gimli had been the only Council member to back him against Carcharoth at the last meeting, half a T-year ago.
"On the contrary. The last time I spoke to the Council, I did more than recommend that we resist the temptation to strip the Citadel for operations in the west. I said that the great Plan to turn Haven into a new Sauron Homeworld had faded. I said then and I say now that we have become decadent, static, that we are sliding into barbarism more slowly than the cattle after the Dol Guldur bombed them. More slowly, but just as surely.
"Armies learn from defeat." He waved at the evident signs of disaster that had reached even this chamber. In the stillness they could hear faintly the keening of the tribute maidens in the Inner Keep as they mourned their dead children.
"This catastrophe is our opportunity. We cannot endure as a fragment of high technology squatting on a subsistence-peasant base. We will never re-create Homeworld with animal transport and wooden plows! The Sauron ideal requires a unified world, and only an industrialized world can sustain a universal State. We must develop technologies suitable to this planet and its resources; we must increase the productivity of our subject peoples until they can support a true planetwide empire.
"The Sauron Unified State had more castes than just Soldiers. We must bring back those castes: scholars, administrators. Let the Archivists become what they once were—Technicians. And we must bring back the Teachers and Engineers."
"And Scientists," a soft voice said from beside him.
He nodded approval at Sigrid. "And Scientists."
"Above all, we must recognize that our presence has presented a massive challenge to the human norms of Haven. Environmental challenge accelerates evolution—and we have spread our genes well beyond the area of our control, as well. Now Haven presents a challenge to us. We must master that challenge, master this world, and be ready to face the greater challenges that will—inevitably—arise when we make contact with other worlds again . . . or they make contact with us."
"You'll bring the Empire down on us," Ansel Diettinger said. He was, for a little while yet, First Citizen, and Sharku answered him.
"We don't know if the Empire still exists. It may have dissolved in war and chaos. If—no, when we go back to the stars, we are as likely to find allies as enemies. But whatever we find, it will be better than this! Than cowering in caves, bleating like cattle! This was never Galen Diettinger's dream, that we hide here until we lose all knowledge of our destiny! It is time to go back. It is time to build a new Homeworld. It is time to realize our destiny."
A sound grew; for a moment Sharku did not recognize it. It was cheering, but from the lungs and mouths of Soldiers. Rank upon rank of them in the tiers behind him, roaring out his name to the pounding beat of their rifles on the concrete floor.
"Sharku! Sharku!"
It shook him for a moment, before Soldier logic reasserted itself. Carcharoth led them to near disaster. I retrieved the situation.
The irony of it did not escape him. Galen Diettinger had led one shipload of fugitives from the wreck of Old Sauron, and the Race on Haven would have worshipped him as a god, if their severe rationalism had allowed such indulgence. Sharku had managed to pull the Citadel back from the brink of destruction, and now he was receiving the same adulation. It is time, he thought, that the Race produced great leaders who are not confined to retrieving something from the edge of extinction.
The cheering died; Soldiers felt self-conscious in such displays. Breedmaster Sigrid's precisely controlled Cyborg tones dropped into the silence.
"Battlemaster Sharku is correct. Drastic restructuring of our system, in line with the original plans of First Citizen Diettinger and Lady Althene, is in order." She paused, staring at Sharku. "Battlemaster Sharku has shown himself fit to assume command. He is of Diettinger's direct line. I am of Lady Althene's line, and I am now his consort. I believe the implications are obvious."
The Council stood. "Moved, before the Council and the Soldiers-in-Arms," Gimli said, an almost imperceptible glee in his voice, "that Battlemaster Sharku assume the Rank of First Citizen. That this Council dissolve itself, and a new Council be summoned at the pleasure of First Citizen Sharku, to advise him."
"Ave! Ave Sharku! FIRST SOLDIER SHARKU!" The rifle butts pounded against the floor, the drumming rhythm overpowering. Dust flew through the chamber. "First Soldier. First Soldier!"
Feeling a weight heavier than worlds, Sharku walked up the steps to the dais and sat, in the chair that had been Galen Diettenger's. The Councilors stood and saluted, then filed down to take their seats among the ordinary Soldiers. Ansel Diettinger hesitated, then saluted and joined the other former Councilors. Sharku met Gimli's eye and nodded imperceptibly.
Perhaps I should refuse the crown thrice, Sharku thought mordantly. But no: Soldiers did not use such tricks of rhetoric; besides, only Sigrid and Gimli would understand the reference.
"Ave! Ave Sharku! FIRST SOLDIER SHARKU!"