Gawain, p.5
Gawain, page 5
Yasmin ignored most and let her scanners lock on the flatbed with the dazzler instead. Like many of them, it didn’t have a turret, just a mounting aimed forward over the cab.
She had to stay outside that.
Movement.
It helped that they had generally gone west of her, and thrown up a tremendous surge of dust and smoke that they were trapped in. The sun had appeared and begun to turn everything to a solid haze of fog. Her radars could penetrate that, but human eyes could not.
She ran.
The batteries had finally recharged from the reactor. Temperature readings on her dazzler no longer showed red, but that was a temporary thing, she knew.
Still, she had her sword. Yasmin drew it now and felt the flow of all those mornings doing her movements atop ibn Rustah center her now.
Left, circling. The truck she wanted was faced in towards the mass of haze and noise at the center of the camp, at tents caught fire or exploded from munitions igniting. Dust from wheels and feet.
The dazzler truck fired, but she had no idea what they had seen, as the bolt went into the camp instead of over where she moved. A screen showed a technical explode on the far side, so they must be tracking movement and panicking.
Yasmin smiled.
Terror was an effective tool right now. Doubly so if she had just killed their warboss.
She opened the external speakers and howled as she charged the last thirty meters, broadside to the truck.
Heads turned towards her. Eyes and mouths opened as far as they could go.
Yasmin placed the cut in her mind, against a truck that wasn’t moving, and did a little two-hop dancing movement that just felt right, even though it was nothing Ardashir had ever showed her,
Into the air as she slowed.
One foot planted and then the other.
Dead stop and let the momentum carry up and over into that three-meter-sword she held, slicing down and in.
For a moment she was afraid she’d miscalculated. Then it went home.
Through the two men just behind the cab, the gunner and the one minding the massive generator. Missed the hardware by enough. Into the rear of the truck cab and through the man driving.
The engine stalled.
Death. But they were all marauders who preyed on the weak like the Mongols out of the distant northeast. The ones that had once swept through Central Asia slaying all in their path that didn’t immediately surrender to whatever rape and pillage these men might seek.
Yasmin hadn’t seen more than one in eight females among the group, which told her most of what she needed, when the village behind her had twice the number of women that it did men.
The battlefield had fallen strangely silent, as though her twin blows had decapitated them. Or driven their wits.
In Farsi, she yelled, dialing up the speakers as loud as they would go.
“Surrender, or die,” Yasmin howled, standing over to corpse of her latest foe.
She looked around as the smoke and dust began to clear, a breeze finally coming out of the south.
Half a dozen vehicles were fleeing northeast around the edge of the lake bed, but the others were either destroyed or being abandoned as she watched, crews and gunners madly jumping out lest she come for them next.
In the encampment, hands went in the air as weapons were dropped in the dirt.
She began walking that way, scanners blasting every direction for a sudden, hidden threat.
“All of you listen to me now,” she said, leaving things loud enough to be painful to anyone too close. “Grab water and food and move to the edge of the lake. Now!”
Like stunned sheep, she saw mostly the few women move first, grabbing bags and bundles while many of the men stood there in hollow shock.
But then, she had just arrived in their lives like an angry djinn released from his bottle.
“Move or die,” she snarled, jarring the remaining ones into motion.
She gave them time to move out of the camp before she followed, tracking the nucleus of a new problem driving away. If they returned, they were hostile and she would deal with them.
Eventually, forty-seven heat signatures settled, not counting the dogs. Eleven women, thirty-six men, but most of the people she’d killed had been men, as near as she could tell.
Yasmin stood at the edge of the camp and studied the survivors.
Shell shock. Ardashir had used the term to describe veterans emotionally overwhelmed.
“Where is your leader?” she asked after turning sound down to reasonable levels. “Where is Dehkordi?”
“Dead,” a woman called back. Young, but weathered and worn. Thirty, perhaps, but they had been hard years in a desert camp instead of living in a peaceful village or under a safe mountain. “You killed him.”
“Eat and drink for now, then,” Yasmin said. “I have friends coming at noon, and then you can decide whether you are done with war, or wish to walk after your friends who think that they can flee my wrath.”
They sat. Watched her. Probably resigned themselves to death, but Yasmin had other things in mind.
She just needed some time.
Yasmin watched the reflection of noonday sun off the front of ibn Rustah as the great machine rolled ponderously close like a noisy plow horse.
She had stayed put, watching her prisoners all morning, talking to Behrooz after she had given Ardashir the complete rundown of the battle.
Yasmin assumed that she would get graded harshly, but she had won, so they would start there.
The marauders had stirred and stood, watching the war machine lumber forward at a fast walk. Finally, it came to a stop and she watched Ardashir and another robed figure emerge from the top hatch, cross, and then climb down the right front ladder.
It was only when they reached the ground and began to cross the remains of the camp that she recognized the other figure.
Nahal.
The Sayyida had come with the two men.
Yasmin turned her attention back to her prisoners. She was protected against a pistol someone might have hidden, but the others would not be, so she pinged them with her scanners again.
Knives and chains. Nothing more. Ardashir could still take either away from a much-younger man before the fool realized what he faced, so she smiled.
“You have had the morning to contemplate your sins,” Yasmin announced to the mob, talking loudly now rather than screaming. “The elder from the village you attacked yesterday comes now.”
They stirred uncomfortably, muttering and shifting, but not willing to do anything dumb enough that she killed them.
Not yet.
Hopefully never. She would not win by killing everyone who opposed her. Ardashir had taught her better than that.
“Who among you would give up your ways and try to build a new Persia with me?” Yasmin asked. “Who would prefer peace, instead of predation?”
She watched the women closest.
Few of them would have likely chosen this life, especially as they were so outnumbered. Slaves taken in raids, most likely. Or prizes given in some bizarre, barbaric tribute to the man she had killed.
Yes, Yasmin had read enough history and literature to understand how the outside world had worked.
She would break the men of Persia of that thinking. Or she would kill them. Those would not be any great loss.
“What do you want from us?” that first woman yelled back.
“An end to lawlessness,” Yasmin answered. “Working for a common good and rebuilding what was lost, rather than tearing down everything that remained.”
“Those people will kill us,” the woman said.
“Not if you choose to work hard,” Yasmin said.
She turned the giant mechanoid back now to where Ardashir and Nahal stood.
“Nahal Ghorbani Sayyida is the woman in charge in the village you attacked,” Yasmin said. “She is my friend. Will you accept her as your leader now?”
Nahal nodded slowly so that everyone who could see her would understand that she would accept those terms. Yasmin had not spoken with Ardashir or Nahal about this ahead of time, but it was the logical next step, and they had discussed similar things last night over tea and dinner.
Before anyone but Grandfather and Behrooz probably believed that she could actually do it.
“Why not you, woman?” the woman turned and took several steps away from the rest of the group, although all but one of the other women shifted that way as well. “Why not join your army instead?”
“I have no army,” Yasmin said. “I am going to rebuild all of Persia. That requires peace and trade first.”
“And then?” she asked. “What happens to you?”
Yasmin considered the woman closer. Studied her on the screen and saw the youth still there. Perhaps a decade older than her. Young enough to be Nahal’s child. Possibly a successor or even a rival, as there had been few in the pumping station with the necessary force of personality. At least in the short time Yasmin had met and spoken with them.
“When we are done, I will be your king,” Yasmin said simply.
It was a calm certainty if she lived, because nobody else seemed to dream big enough to accomplish the thing. The Sayyida was of the ancient blood, but she had been satisfied just holding her village against the raiders from the wasteland.
These folks standing before her had been vultures preying on the decaying corpse.
“How?” the woman asked, but her voice held less challenge and more wonder. “You are a woman, just as I. The men will not stand for it.”
Yasmin pointed back with one finger where her scanners had marked Dehkordi’s cooling corpse.
“They will,” she answered simply.
All eyes turned that direction for a long beat before understanding dawned.
The closest woman, the potential future leader of this band, fell to her knees. The others watched, but the rest of the women joined her a moment later, followed by the men in slow, painful dribbles.
King of Persia?
Yasmin let her mind wander back over all the great legends of history. Each had started out in a similar fashion, with a hero discovered in some out of the way place, before rising up and taking over.
And Arthur had carried Excalibur.
Yes, it would begin here.
Now she just had to make it work.
Two
Ronin
Much of a day had passed.
Yasmin Shir-Del had spent it inside her Excalibur mechanoid, the stolen American fighting machine originally built by the Japanese in another era. Before the fall of civilization everywhere. She had sufficient food and cold tea to last her through two more days, so it was not that great a chore to stand here and keep watch.
Around her, the former marauders had disarmed their various trucks and transports of all heavy weapons, piling the things up for her to carry over to ibn Rustah. The people could keep their personal knives, but even rifles and pistols were confiscated for now. The warbus had been turned upright with some ropes and trucks assisting her servo muscles, and was leading the way.
They had surrendered to her as future King of Persia, so they had no need of such weapons. The Sayyida would get all that gear, minus anything interesting enough that Behrooz claimed it first, just as the older woman would become the local chief to which all these people now bowed.
Thus would peace be slowly spread across the Persian plateau. Even if Yasmin had to continue killing those men and women who could not accept laws.
She had spent the day talking to Behrooz on the comm even as Grandfather and the Sayyida got the survivors slowly organized. From here, they would drive what vehicles survived back to the village.
“Will it be enough?” Behrooz asked her now, as she watched the small caravan of vehicles depart for the village compound.
The sun was drifting to orange, but the trip was short by petroleum-fueled vehicle.
“They are a broken bunch,” Grandfather came over the line now, a headset and microphone hidden in his hood and turban such that he looked like a broken-down, ancient man.
Who could probably still take anyone in the camp in single combat, with the possible except of Yasmin if she had a touch of luck. But Ardashir Shir-Del was like that.
“Broken?” Behrooz pressed.
“The Wrath of Allah descended on them for their sins.” Grandfather laughed harshly. “More than one of them whispered that to another at various points today. The Sayyida will have them back to her people and scattered about as individuals before they could begin to think of trouble again. It is the dogs who fled that will be a problem.”
“Only for a time, Ardashir,” Yasmin interjected now. “Only for a very short time.”
“What do you plan?” the old man asked.
“I have studied the old ways, as you made sure,” she reminded him. “They are bushi, but have now become masterless with Jamshid Dehkordi killed in battle.”
“These are not Japanese, child,” he warned her sternly. “They do not recognize honor as those folks would have.”
“No, but they will follow the old patterns now,” Yasmin said. “They will become even greater bandits than they were, and will either elect a new leader who is ruthless enough to cow the survivors, or scatter to the four winds and take their infection with them wherever they go.”
“Would the latter be that great an issue?” Behrooz asked now, having remained quiet.
“They will have to prey on someone,” Yasmin said. “Such is their nature. If they had been willing to trade or join a settlement, they would have already. Or they could have surrendered to me this morning, as the others did. If ibn Rustah was armed, you could wait for me here, but I expect that they will return at some point, at least close enough to see what remains.”
“If the wars are not over by now…” he started to retort, but Yasmin cut him off.
“This is a new war, Behrooz,” she said sharply. “The Americans with their European and Japanese allies already destroyed the world before either of us was born. We must now reforge it, you and I. That will not always be done with peace, though we will try.”
“As long as we try,” he said, surrendering to her will on this one. “So we should follow the Sayyida?”
“For now,” Yasmin said. “Perhaps drill a few new wells to extend her reach and ability to grow crops while I hunt down a mob of ronin and see to them. It should not take long, as a great deal of their fuel and food is currently departing and will be safely inside the village by nightfall. Quickly, they will be no longer able to run.”
“Exercise care, warrior,” Grandfather instructed her now. “A trapped rat is one of the most dangerous creatures you will ever fight. Hound them, yes, but always leave them a way to flee you, so they do not decide to die fighting.”
“Understood, Ardashir,” Yasmin said. “I will see you in a few days.”
She turned the mechanoid to follow the ruts cut into the lake shore where a mob in trucks had fled at dawn, then set off in pursuit.
Darkness.
When Yasmin had been merely a child, living in the hidden fastness of Aynalo, night had meant that everyone locked everything up tight and descended into the mountain.
Had that been less than a year ago?
Now, she was a predator, stalking that same night in search of prey that had thought to escape her. But Yasmin had an advantage that the others could not match. Her Excalibur was powered by a fusion reactor with enough fuel to carry her for more than month.
In some ways, it was like a scene from the African Savannah she had studied in the old books, where a human hunter would set out to walk after an antelope or something. The creature would continue to flee, but eventually she would catch up. Such animals had sometimes just fallen over dead from exhaustion often enough to make that a viable hunting strategy.
She intended to replicate it here. They had petroleum engines, but not much fuel. She could hound them until it ran out, if she chose. At that point, on foot, they stopped being threats to any village with even a modicum of defensive preparation.
At this point in human history, any villages that had survived were prepared for raiders. It had only been the heavy weapons this bunch had found or stolen that made them dangerous to anyone. Without engines, they would no longer have dazzlers or autocannons.
At that point, Yasmin wasn’t sure what she would do. Killing the vehicles eliminated the threat.
Did she eliminate the men themselves?
Ronin, when the green and gold flag she bore on a pole raised above the Excalibur’s shoulders marked her as a Bannerman.
Or a king.
She walked, letting the machine’s magical sensors search the terrain around her for technology that might be a threat or a prize, depending. At her feet, a dozen trucks on vulcanized tires had left a trail anyone could follow, so she had to prepare for the eventuality that they attacked her from ambush.
Someone would be looking over a shoulder for her to fall on them again. Yasmin doubted that any of them would actually sleep tonight, preferring instead to continue moving slowly over rough terrain by relying on headlights to keep them from driving off a cliff or into a wall.
Antelope, scampering away and hoping that the thing chasing them didn’t have the patience to follow.
Yasmin was constructed of patience, perhaps with a flavoring of bile. She had been raised a daughter in a conservative village by Persian elders still wedded to the sorts of hard-headed backwardness that had destroyed the world. Had Grandfather not intervened, she would have approached her majority with no dreams greater than hoping her parents arranged a good marriage match among the dozen or so eligible men and boys close enough to her age to make it worth pursuing.
But Yasmin had dreamed. Thwarted in studying engineering—a boy’s topic not allowed for one destined to be a homemaker—she had learned history instead. Mythologies. Cultures.
One of these days, when she was successful, she would always hire Behrooz a staff of engineers to support his vast technical redneckery. Yasmin would need answers when she was King of all Persia.
