and sprinted off in the opposite direction. When this happened, the swampies leisurely unchained the dogs, who scrambled after the prey, baying. The deserters got off one, mebbe two shots, then came desperate screams for help amid wild snarling. Screams that were quickly silenced. After the same scenario had played out a few times, there were no more deserters.
Even if successful escape had been possible, Doc would never have left his battle mates.
High above the loose, three-abreast formation, buzzards circled, riding the thermals, waiting for hapless souls to weaken and fall behind. No bullwhips, no threats were required to keep the column of conscripts moving onward. To fall behind was to be abandoned in the desert, and that meant a slow, awful death by heat and dehydration, it meant lying helpless while the carrion birds plucked out your eyes and tongue.
Idle chatter among the ranks had dried up hours ago, along with the rain-soaked soil. The rapid pace of the advance was difficult to maintain, first because of soggy earth, and now because of all the dust the boots, the wheels and the animals were raising. Talking parched the throat and the refreshment stops on the march were few and far between.
Even when wind gusts blew aside the swirling beige dust, there was little of interest to look at. The army trudged down the vast river plain, creeping toward low blue blips on the horizon. The troops and wags and dogs at the front of the column scared off any wild animals.
As Doc put one foot in front of the other, his mind began to wander, inexorably turning inward. This was the first army in which he had served. During his months of captivity before nukeday, he had read about the terrible wars of the twentieth century. Except for the smattering of automatic weapons among the ranks, this army could have come straight from the fifteenth century—or even earlier. It had no mass overland transit. No aircraft. No communications systems. No motor-powered wags.
It was a legion of barbarians, of shabbily clad ground pounders who pillaged the hellscape like locusts.
AS AFTERNOON EDGED into evening, Malosh’s column climbed out of the river valley into the low, rolling desert hills polka-dotted with clumps of brush. Sunset tinged the mountains to the east, turning the up-tilted layers of folded bedrock into alternating bands of pink and orange. In a notch between the hilltops, they made camp for the night, unharnessing the horses and mules, lighting cook fires, setting up the tents for the men in charge. Everyone else ate and slept in the open in groups segregated by function and the relative purity of their genetics.
While waiting in line with the rest of the cannon fodder for his supper, Doc saw Jak and Krysty standing over by the dog pack. He tried to get their attention, but in the failing light they didn’t see him.
Ferdinando, the commander of the human shields, supervised the distribution of their evening meal. His right arm ended in a khaki sock-covered stump just above the elbow. His left hand was badly mangled as was the right side of his throat and face. A thick brown beard covered his cheeks, everywhere but that angry, waxy patch of scar.
Dinner consisted of a single, fire-roasted jacket potato and a dipper of water.
“This is what the baron means by ‘plenty to eat’?” Doc said, holding up the charred, stunted spud he’d been given.
“Fighters march faster on empty stomachs,” Ferdinando said. “Dogs are more eager for the hunt. Don’t worry, there will be feasting enough after we retake Sunspot ville.”
“You had control of it and lost it?” Doc queried.
“Our forces were driven out by Baron Haldane’s troops. The battle cost me my arm.”
“A terrible wound, indeed,” Doc commiserated.
“Gren went off under a horse I was walking past. Shrap tore me up bad, and then the horse fell on top of me. Lost this wing altogether, and it crushed my left hand so I can’t fire a blaster no more. To tell the truth, I can hardly pick up a spoon to feed myself.”
“Malosh’s army did that to you?”
“No, no. The gren came from Haldane’s men.”
“But you were a conscript?”
“No, I volunteered.”
“Why in God’s name would you do something like that?” Doc asked.
“Because I come from the heartland of Malosh’s barony,” Ferdinando said. “To the west of here there’s nothing but desert, unfarmable hardscrabble for hundreds of miles in every direction. It’s a place so worthless nobody has ever bothered trying to invade it. Before Malosh took power in the territory, the people in my ville were always just one day away from starvation. We had to watch our children die of hunger and disease. Malosh freed us from our fate. He realized that even though we could never win total victory over the neighboring barons because of our limited numbers, we could raid their territory on a regular basis and send the food back to our people. He forged us into a quick-strike fighting force. We survive by our wits, our courage and our speed of foot. If we stop moving, we die.”
“Surely you could pack up and move somewhere else. To greener, more hospitable pastures.”
“And fall under the bootheel of another baron?” Ferdinando said. “Never. The hard land where we were born has made us who we are. And we are proud of it.”
“And in the name of that pride you swear allegiance to the Impaler?”
“Call him whatever you like. He’s a hero to his people.”
“Perhaps so, but what about the poor souls he has forced to fight and die for him, whose villes he has ransacked?”
“Wait until you see the baron in battle. Wait until you see the effect he has on every person in this army. Malosh has no equal in valor or in daring. His example as a warrior raises everyone up.”
“I’ve seen how he raises people up,” Doc said. “He has no equal in brutality, either.”
“That is a means to an end,” Ferdinando said. “Three die and fifty join us.”
“You are saying he takes no pleasure from those ghastly public spectacles?”
“I have fought under Malosh for two years. Because of that mask he wears I’ve never seen him smile. I don’t know what gives him pleasure. I only know I will die for him because of what he has done for his people, for my kin.”
“No matter what he has done to everyone else.”
Ferdinando smiled. “Mark my words, when the time comes you will die for him, too. And gladly.”
“I will die,” Doc said, “but not for the likes of him.”
Clutching his miserable meal, Doc found Bezoar and Young Crad huddled close to one of the campfires. The elder swineherd comforted the younger, who sobbed bitterly into his palms.
“She’s in a much better place,” Bezoar assured his friend. After a minute he limped over to Doc.
“Poor boy’s brokenhearted,” Bezoar said.
“If you ask me, his attachment to that dead beast seems inordinate,” Doc remarked.
“The feeling was mutual,” Bezoar said.
