S. M. Stirling - Fifth Millennium 04 - Snowbrother.pdf - S. M. Stirling - widez2

Snowbrother

S.M. Stirling

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A shorter and substantially different version of this novel was published in 1985.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, N.Y.

ISBN: 0-671-72119-4 Cover art by Larry Elmore

Map by Eleanor Kostyk First printing, May

Distributed by SIMON & SCHUSTER 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y.

Printed in the United States of America

to Jan

PROLOGUE:

Long ago, in the Before, we were as the gods are, riding thunderbirds of metal, wielding Break-the-Sky

medicine, smashing whole cities at a single blow. Then, all the lands were one realm, from the bitterwater

of the east to the sea beyond the Westwall mountains. In fortresses beneath the earth, or aloft beyond the

world of air our Ancestors ruled, the chosen warriors of the gods. Weak and sinful, many turned from the

honorable path of war, all but the faithful few, and the ahKomman were angered. So the Godwar came,

and the year Without Sun; the Ztrateke ahkomman walked no more with humans, and the world was

broken and changed. But we are warriors still.

Kommanz folktale

quoted in theBook of Journeys

of Anyamarah the Far-Traveled

preserved in the libraries of the Rose Temple, Senlaw

775 th Year of the Maleficence

Page 1

(4720 A.D.)

STONEFORT KEEP

KOMMANZ OF GRANFOR

AUTUMN, 4962 A.D.

"It is good," one of the councilors said, hawking and spitting in the dirt. The gobbet of phlegm landed

near the outland merchant's boot, but his diplomatic smile never wavered.

Zhy'da Mek Kermak grunted and looked down at the plow below the low earth dais where the ruling

kin and their wisefolk waited. The Senior of Stonefort Keep was a tall rawboned woman in her early

fifties, still ropily muscular; except for those knocked out in fights, she still had all her teeth, strong and

yellow as she grinned.

"Maybe too good," she rasped, taking another pull at the leather cup of beer. The plow had a wooden

frame, but the share and moldboard were of dark-shining durcret; that was a southron thing, almost as

strong as metal but far cheaper. In the demonstration two horses had drawn it easily through tough prairie

sod, while six oxen struggled and heaved at the clumsy Kommanz breaking-plow.

It was a hot day, even though the first night frosts had come; no sign of a thunderstorm in the cloudless

sky, which was a good omen. Mustering Fair, bright noon sun through a harvest-haze of dust, air heavy

with the smells of sweat and dung and smoke. The angular stone ramparts and towers of the Keep

bulked at their backs, and the close-cropped pasture of the Home Field stretched for kilometers on

either side over land flat as a tabletop. Today it was crowded. Warriors drilling, the village contingents

come in to show that their skills had not rusted. Wagonloads of tribute from the dependent territories,

piles of yellow grain, potatoes, whole-cowskin sacks of sunflower oil, bolts of cloth, milling herds. And

everyone with something to sell, everyone who could be spared in the lands about Stonefort. It was a

relief after the tension and fear of harvest season, when folk took turn and turn-about reaping and riding

guard against nomad raiders or bandits. The grain and flax and oilseeds were safely cut and carted;

potatoes and roots were still to be brought in, but those were safely unburnable.

This was the best time of year; plenty to eat, good hunting—the fall bison herds would be through

soon—and usually no more fighting than the soul required. Mostly skirmishing with other Keeps, fighting

within the Bans for ransoms and herds. The fair was the beginning of it.

The ruling kinfast had spent the morning handing out judgments; fines and compounding for blood feuds

and killings, a few floggings and ear-croppings and nose-slittings for serious crimes like horse theft or

blasphemy, one straw-haired head sending rivulets of blood down a pole. That one had killed outside the

Bans, cutting down a pregnant freewoman; even someone mad-drunk orahrappan should remember

what was peaceholy.

"You, merchants," she said, rising. "Go, over there."

The southlanders bowed slightly and withdrew. They were from the Pentapolis, the League of Ten Cities

three weeks' journey to the southeast; odd-looking, in their tight trews and jewel-buttoned silk jackets,

with long rapiers at their sides and dart pistols bolstered at their hips. They had brought a strong escort

down the trade-trail this season, mercenary knights, and armored foot-fighters with pikes and crossbows.

Zhy'da did not fear them for that, or for the train of two dozen huge six-wheeled wagons with their

ceramic flamethrowers. The merchants were careful to stay within the area marked out by the

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demon-headed poles; that was peaceholy too, although only with the second Ban.

On the other side of the dais tribute accounts were being handed in, and a tallyman was droning: "—and

it is said that the Thorut's-kin are yeoman-freeholders of Tunbak village. And their clan is Mad Bear and

their lords are the Kallak's-kin. And it is said they hold seventy hectares in free of the village and fifty

from their lords and grazing right in commons. And it is said their service in peace is the labor of one for

one day in every week and two for one day in mainharvest and hayharvest weeks with plow and team

and scythe and cartage, and of grain ten horseloads, and one colt in ten and one beast in ten and the

wool of fifteen sheep. And it is said their war-service is five lancers fully trained with gear and

remounts—"

No, Zhy'da thought.I fear the southrons' arts of peace, not their weapons .

"Ifwe buy their plows, we need them to plow at all," she said. "So we must sell more to them, every

year."

Her wombchild Zte'vf laughed. "Or take."

She swung an arm without bothering to look around, backhanding him across the mouth.

"Drunk before sundown? Twenty lashes tomorrow." The beginning of a protest; she struck him again.

"Shut up, before I remember the dumb donkey I must have fucked to throw a stupid colt like you," she

said. "Make obeisance and go, bring your kinsib Shkai'ra to me."

One of the warmasters sighed. "Time was when we raided south to the Great River itself, and the Ten

Cities paid us tribute," he said.

Zhy'da shrugged. "Time was when the southrons weren't so many and their cities so strong," she said.

Even the rural knights in the south had mostly replaced their brick-and-timber forts with castles of

glassfiber-reinforced concrete, and the cities had walls like cliffs and murder-machines to guard them.

Too many Kommanz warbands had been caught on their way home, slowed by loot.

"We can beat their war-hosts and kill their peasants, but we can't spare strength to really harm them, not

with the Sky-Blue at our backs."

Several of the Kommanza spat off the dais at the mention of the Sky-Blue Wolves of the High Steppe,

the cannibal nomads of the short-grass plains to the west.

"A long time since they tried to break the border," the warmaster observed. Nothing this summer but the

usual raids; the Kommanz had smashed several, taking prisoners for sale and sending the survivors

wailing back to their tents.

Zhy'da nodded; that was the point. Fifty winters ago drought had struck, and half the tribes between the

Scarp and the Westwall tried to push east into the tall grass country. The three southeastern realms, the

Kommanz of Granfor and Ihwaz and Maintab, had called out their levies to meet them: twenty thousand

lances. Every second adult in three of the six Kommanz realms had died that year, and the slaughter of

nomads in battle and pursuit had left windrows of bones. You still found them here and there, hidden in

the long grass and crunching under hooves. Since then both sides in the ancient conflict had had time to

breed back their strength.

"With the southron tools…" the warmaster continued, shrugging.

Page 3

Many others grunted agreement; the plow was impressive, but the horse-drawn harvesting machine even

more so. Every Keep maintained five-score or so of full-time fighters with no trade but war, and the

village chiefs each had their retainers, but the core of a Kommanz warhost was the yeomen. Few of the

freeholder kinfasts had more than a slave or so, many none at all; it was not safe to keep many more

unfree about, in a land so wild and thinly peopled. Yeomen must train to war and work their fields and

flocks as well, and the new machines would spare many hours for drill and fighting. Yet perhaps they

were unwise, or unlucky. It was always dangerous to break with custom, an opening for evil witchcraft

and bad luck.

"How will we pay?" Zhy'da said, glancing around to the caravanmaster, manager of the Keep's trading

interests. The man shrugged, rattling handfuls of tally-sticks.

"We can't send much more south," he said. Slaves were a Kommanz export, mostly nomads, but those

were too fierce and flighty to fetch good prices. Then there were wool and leather, dried meat, horses,

hides, metals, and pelts traded or taken from the forest peoples north and east. And a trickle of goods

brought all the way through the Zekz Kommanz, the Six Realms that surrounded the northern end of the

plains of Almerkun like a horseshoe; silk from the lands across the Westwall, along the Mother Ocean;

sea-otter furs, walrus ivory, spices, sandalwood, jade.

"Not much more unless we let them build a railroad north, so we could ship bulk grains."

More grunts, this time of derision. Horses could pull enormous loads on durcret rails, but nobody in

Stonefort, in the whole of Granfor, was going to let the southrons thrust such a spear into the belly of the

Kommanz lands. Not since the Maleficent's day had a southlander army marched into the Realms and

lived. That was because the Kommanz would scorch the earth before it and harry its flanks and rear until

it weakened and despaired from hunger, and they could overrun and slaughter. A railroad could supply

troops through such manmade desert, and the Kommanz Keeps and village walls were built to keep out

the wild nomads, not a cityfolk siege-train that could throw ton-weight blocks half a kilometer or more.

"We could send more hired fighters south," one of her kinmates said. Kommanz mercenary cavalry were

always in demand.

Zhy'da shook her head. "Too many don't come back. We need those riders. And if we spend more time

growing and making goods to sell, that weakens us too. And the southron have reasons of their own to

offer such things, when they never have before. Perhaps just gain-hunting, perhaps not. The

Kommand'ahan in Granfor-the-town has to speak on this, at MidWinter Gathering, but until then we

need a way to get wealth that doesn't weaken our warstrength."

TheKommand'ahan was sacred, but in secular matters must listen to the Keepholder clans, and

Stonefort was among the mightiest of those. She looked up at the sun; in a few hours her children would

be back.

"Here's one answer—"

What duty? Shkai'ra Mek Kermak's-kin thought. It could only be an assignment, when the kinmother

sent her sib to fetch her from overseeing drill. His words had been few and rough, but she scorned to ask

more; they hated each other more than was common, being the youngest of their generation and rivals for

succession. A trickle of apprehension stiffened her spine, colder than the sweat that soaked the padding

Page 4

under her armor. Zhy'da Mek Kermak's-kin believed in testing the offspring, sometimes to destruction.

Zte'vfs lip was swollen and there was dried blood in his cropped yellow beard. That might have

happened in a number of ways, but a kinparent's fist was most likely.

His fault, not mine; if they're angered, it's with him, she reminded herself.

"Take over, Eh'rik," she said to the war-master beside her. He could handle the inspection as well as

she; this was training for her as much as the village levy they were drilling-He nodded silently. Two of the

Stonefort household troopers fell in behind the Mek Kermaks as they left, lances slung and wheelbows in

their hands with arrows nocked. That was prudent, although she was full-armed and her sib bore saber

and wheelbow. Bandits or outlaws might be about, or skulkers from the high steppe, infiltrating through

the broad strips of unbroken grassland between villages. This close to home the steppe was almost tame;

she could see herds of longhorns and beefalo and sheep with their herders, and there were patches

where the bluestem had been grazed down to knee height. Mostly it was chest-high on a tall horse, a

wavering sea of bronze and wine-russet stalks starred with deep purple-blue downy gentians, running to

the horizon all around. When they skirted a swampy vale, ducks and geese lifted in clouds huge enough

to hide the westering sun. The air was cooling toward sundown, smelling of dry grass and wild rose and

horse.

The Kommanza rode at wolf-pace, walk-trot-canter-trot-walk. Soon enough they saw patrols, then the

outlying fields of Stonefort's home village, stubble alternating with blocks of potatoes and beets and

alfalfa. They passed wagons and pack trains headed in to the Mustering Fair. Dust hazed the eastern

horizon, and their lances threw long slender shadows as they rode into the close-cropped area about the

castle itself.

Shkai'ra kept her eyes ahead as befitted a noble while she rode through the Mustering Fair, although it

was an effort; her concession to curiosity was to clip her helmet to her belt. Noise beat at her. Nothing

but a hall-feast or a battle was as loud as a fair; there must be a ten of hundreds of people here. Keep

servants and warmasters were setting up the balks and targets for tomorrow's games; mounted archery

and lance-work while riding obstacle courses, and there would be unarmed combat and target shooting,

too. Booths and tents with wonderful things; shining tools of ceramic or metal, colored cloth—some of

real cotton or silk—fine weapons and tooled saddles, things your hands itched to touch. Hawkers

dodged near, holding up delicacies; skewers of grilled buffalo-hump and onion, lamb ribs, southland wine

or coffee, then dropped back when they were ignored.

The crowds parted before her and her kinsib, like prairie grass before their horses. She swung a fist up

in salute and ducked her head as she passed one of her kinfathers buying stock from a dealer. Slaves this

time, six fine females and an equal number of strong young males, for the Great Sacrifice at the end of the

fair: human, horse, cattle and dog. Then they drew near the dais and its circle of space.

Shkai'ra reached back for the lance in its holster behind her right thigh, pulled it free and stabbed the

point into the dirt in token of respect. Zte'vf and she vaulted to the ground together, went to their knees,

and pressed their foreheads to the ground between their palms.

"Obedience to you, givers of our blood," the young nobles said.

Zhy'da grunted. "Up, puppies," she said. "Closer."

They knee-walked to the edge of the mound. Four of the ruling generation of Mek Kermak's-kin were

there, a few of their senior advisors, and the great shaman Walks-With-Demons. He tapped at the drums

slung to his belt, and the circle of emptiness around the dais grew larger.

Page 5

S. M. Stirling - Fifth Millennium 04 - Snowbrother.pdf

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