Текст книги "Shrapnel: Fragments from the Inner Sphere"

Автор книги: Elizabeth Danforth

Соавторы: William H. Keith,Ken St. Andre,Jordan K. Weisman,Michael A. Stackpole
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Then the pair of Locustson the west gave warning of another charge.

The battle continued that way, with long minutes dragging into an eternity of an hour. The 20 minutes promised by Carlyle had long since gone by, as the Gray Death ran into a heavy concentration of Dieron Regular Mechs somewhere to the west How long it would take to break through this new barrier was anyone's guess, but the Arrows could not hold out much longer. All of the Mechs were redlining their temperature gauges, the heat overloads from continuous weapons fire threatening to shut them all down. The Waspshad long since run out of missile reloads, and enemy fire had smashed Greg Babbage's Locustinto uselessness. The apprentice had escaped from his Mech unharmed, and during a lull, he had managed to pull the bleeding and unconscious Vic Dolby from his crippled Stingerand to drag him to the shelter of an overhanging boulder. The five remaining Mechs flattened out in a close ring, belly-down on the ridgetop. and continued to fire at everything that moved below them.

Tracy snapped off a shot from her large laser at the damaged Hunchbacktoiling up the slope below her, saw sparks flashing from damaged circuitry exposed in the machine's torso. Heavy-caliber autocannon shells cracked into the boulders around her.

Briefly, she was aware of screaming coming over the tac com. When she shifted her Mech's position slightly, she caught sight of Foster's Wasp,ablaze like a gigantic torch for a horrid handful of seconds Then the Waspexploded in flaming, ragged chunks of metal.

Tracy tasted bitter defeat. She was gasping with the stifling heat that pervaded her cockpit, a heat that had long since overpowered her cooling unit and left her weak and dizzy. Heat cramps spasmed in her calf and stomach muscles. The Dutiful Daughterhad received massive damage, her jump jets ruined, her shoulders and upper torso shredded and torn by shell and beam. With Foster's death. Tracy's team was down to four Mechs. a Locust,a Stinger,a Wasp,and her own Phoenix Hawk.Not one of them had escaped heavy damage.

I should have kept going, once I was clear of the line,she thought I could have broken the Kurita line then. I lost the chance when I went back to be with them.

Had she not returned, though, how long would the MechWarrior apprentices have lasted, without her experience to steady them? There was no answer in might-have-beens, and it was too late lor the handful of them to attempt to break through the Kurita line now. A fresh salvo of missiles smashed among the rocks and she drew a bead on a Kurita Catapultin the valley to the west.

A Catapult!They've got reinforcements now! So long as Tracy and her men faced only a company, they'd had a chance. To attempt to lace down a 65-ton Catapultwas another story. She saw her laser bolt catch the ponderous Catapultin one leg. watched metal burning without slowing the machine's advance in the slightest.

A Trebuchetfollowed. Oh. God, no!

It looked like the Trebwas in trouble, however. Its left arm was missing, and black smoke spilled from its side. Tracy became aware of other Mechs, all marked by the starburst-on-sun of the Dieron Regulars, all damaged, all retreating.

Toward her!

‘Hey, Arrows!’ she snapped. ‘On your toes! Fresh meat!’

More and more Kurita 'Mechs appeared among the rocks along the slope below them. There were at least two companies there, most of the 'Mechs battle-damaged. At the moment, all were spilling in nearly uncontrollable contusion toward the east

And Arrow Detachment occupied the ridge squarely in their path.

‘Arrow Leader! Arrow Leader! This is Skull Leader!’ The familiar voice was much clearer now and very, very welcome.

‘Colonel! Where are you?’

‘Two klicks west of your position, and closing! We have you spotted on the ridge west of the factory. Sit tight and don't move! Just keep firing from your position!’

‘Acknowledged, Colonel. We're burning them down!’

On the face of it Arrow Detachment was in a terribly exposed position, smack in the path that the fleeing remnants of the Kurita battleforce were taking. They had been roughly handled in a series of lightning engagements among the mountains to the west, and by now, their pilots were probably thinking only of saving their 'Mechs...and themselves. When the 'Mechs in the lead of the Kurita column began to take fire from the crest of the ridge separating them from the Mifune factory complex, their last reserves of discipline vanished. At almost precisely the same time, four of Carlyle's 'Mechs came smashing up from the south, having looped around the fleeing Mechs' southern flank to strike them from the side. Taking fire from three directions, the Dieron Regulars' last shreds of control evaporated, and individual BattleMechs began to scramble for safety across the rocky ground along the ridge side to the north.

When Carlyle's forces linked up with the defenders on the ridge, only two 'Mechs remained operable enough to greet them. Having been wounded early in the fight, Paul Casey had bled to death in the cockpit of his LocustTracy Kent was unconscious, a victim of heat prostration.

The victory at Mifune Pass promised to become yet another spectacular victory in the annals of the Gray Death Legion. Carlyle had managed to deploy his forces in such a way as to split his more numerous opponents into three groups among the broken ridges and hillsides west of the factory complex, and his deployment of a small force of 'Mech trainees in a fixed defensive position had been nothing short of brilliant. If the regimental historians neglected to point out that the deployment had been accidental, that Carlyle's sudden turn-and-march to the east had been made to rescue Arrow Detachment, that Arrow Detachment's position on the ridgetop where it played anvil to Carlyle's hammer was all the result of luck, pure and simple, they could, perhaps, be forgiven. Grayson Carlyle did not object to being known as a lucky MechForce commander, but he hated it to look as though he relied on luck to carry off his victories.

Tracy regained consciousness in a field hospital set up at Kaigun. The city had surrendered after the Kurita disaster at Mifune Pass, but Carlyle did not yet have enough men on site to secure the city against saboteurs and assassins. A formal occupation would have to wait until House Steiner Drop-Ships could arrive with Lyran troops and reinforcements, in any case, the bulk of the Dieron Regulars remained intact, somewhere north of the city. Meanwhile, the Gray Death was maintaining a defensive position that would allow them to retreat and maneuver, if necessary.

‘How are you feeling?’

Tracy opened her eyes and saw Grayson Carlyle seated beside her cot. ‘Like a 'Mech stepped on me.’

‘That's to be expected. The Doc tells me you'll be up and around in no time.’ -

‘And my people?’

‘Foster and Casey are dead. The rest are fine. Vic Dolby smashed his head against his control panel when his 'Mech was knocked over, but he's already back on duty. We even recovered his Stingerintact.’

'That's good.’ She started to say something more, then bit back the words.

‘What is it?’

‘I...I...’ She tried to order spinning thoughts. ‘I guess I didn't do so well, huh?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘First you had to chew me out about not following orders the night before...and then I went and blew it completely. We never got near the factory complex. And you told me to keep the youngsters out of a fight. I didn't... and now two of them are dead.’

Carlyle leaned back for a moment, thinking. ‘I don't see that you had much choice, Tracy. According to the people with you, you were cut off and surrounded before you even knew there were Kurita 'Mechs in the area.’ He frowned. ‘Bad intelligence, that. But it couldn't be helped.’

‘But...’

‘You lost two of the kids. Again, no choice. You saved four, and yourself. From the way Carolyn Lannetti is talking, you were the hero of the hour, holding the line together, firming the kids up when they needed it, deploying them to meet new threats. It sounds like it was quite a fight.’

‘It was that.’

‘By holding on when I told you to, you scared hell out of the bunch I was chasing-just when they needed scaring. We'd slammed into them ten klicks from your ridge, and it took us over an hour to win through. By the time we broke through, they were pulling back toward Mifune, but they were still in fighting shape. I gather from one prisoner we took that they figured they were completely surrounded when they retreated smack into your bunch perched up on the ridge. Must've been a rude surprise for 'em. They hit your fire and scattered, and then we mopped up.’

‘Then...we won?’

‘Oh, indeed, we did.’ Tracy was startled by the grin on the Colonel's face and puzzled by his emphasis on the word ‘we.’

Then she realized what he was getting at, that the victory had been won through her holding the training cadre together and in place. Had she left the recruits and pursued her own plan, they would have lost it all. Instead, she had pulled her team together, dug in, and they'd slugged it out together.

Together.A victorious team. She grinned back. ‘Yes, sir. I guess wedid.’

WHERE LIES THE HONOR

–William H. Keith, Jr.

The Prefect's hand came down on the shoulder ot the street hawkling's shoulder, and I thought the little man was going to climb right out ot his robes. 'So. little man,' Prefect Hassan roared. ‘You defy me, ne?’

'No, Lord!' The hawkling's voice rose to a falsetto squeak, his eyes bulging with terror. 'Please, Lord Prefect...I was just leaving! As you yourself commanded!’

The Prefect hauled back on the man's arm, pulling the flap of his traveling cloak open. The inside was lined with bottles, flasks, containers, and a small purse bulging with crumpled Company chits.

Holding the squirming man in the grip of his right hand. Hassan motioned with his baton of office, and Okabi and I stepped forward to do our duty.

‘Your name?* I said. Somehow I managed to keep the tremor out of my voice, to assume the aura of authority which went with my uniform. A crowd was already gathering, natural enough in a city accustomed to the usual orderliness of the Combine's rule. Kawabe's sun was only halfway to the zenith, but already the streets were baked dry, the dust heavy in the stifling air. The heat bore with it an oppressiveness that lay over the watching crowd. Was it the heat that maintained the crowd's silence, or something more?

'Name!' I commanded again. I was nervous with so many of Marakani's citizens watching, my temper raw with heat and fear. I shoved the man as I pulled him from the Prefect's grip.

He twisted away from me. anger flushing his face. ‘Aw, fer...You know who I am!’

The barrel of my shotgun caught him in the solar plexus, doubling him over. He gasped, clutched himself, and gasped again, fighting for air.

'Answer!'

‘Gu...Gunnar Holmes,' the little man said. Any fight had been driven from him by the blow. 'I was leaving town, really I was! I had affairs I needed to see to...'

‘I’d say your affairs are about to be settled for you.' I said. I nodded to Okabi, who shifted the combat shotgun in his arms to cover the prisoner. I slung my own weapon, twisted Holmes about, pulled his arms behind his back, and linked them together with wrist restraints.

'You'll have time to explain your crimes later.’ I told him. ‘At your trial.’

For a horrible moment, I thought Holmes was going to faint. There are few things less dignified than the sight of a pair of troopers from the Civilian Guidance Corps dragging an unconscious prisoner off to the holding cage, especially when the troopers are as large as Okabi and me. and the prisoner is as small as Holmes. I could have slung him over my shoulder like a sack of grain and carried him myself, but it is far more respectable to be seen marchinga prisoner to detainment. It proves to watching civilians that your authority is sufficient to force the miscreant to submit to you of his own free will, proves that it is useless to resist the lawful orders of the CGC. It says so in the Guidance Corps Manual.

'Please!' Holmes wailed. ‘You don't understand! My wife and children, they're starving!'

Hassan grinned broadly at that. Then you should have had the honor to starve yourself to death. Holmes. That would have spared your family your disgrace! As it is now...’ The grin broadened, calculation brightening the Prefect's eye. 'Perhaps they can help pay your debt to me.'

‘No. Lord, please!’

'Silence.' I growled. I brought the shotgun on its shoulder sling back to my hip and nudged him in the side with it. 'Behave with honor in this, and it will be easier for all of us. Let's move.'

The public cages were not far.

You have to understand that Marakani is a decent, orderly city. Ka-wabe, like so many of the worlds of the Draconis Combine, is not rich in natural resources. Most of the people are poor, and the economy is dominated by a handful of big, military-run combines. There is a factory outside of Marakani that produces viden extensors for BattleMech containment dampers, and a modest wire drawing plant that gives the city its principal export. Most of Marakani's citizens are employed in one of those two plants, both of which are owned by the monolithic Ka-wanashi Enterprises. Those who don't work for the Company work on the agroplantations that surround Marakani like a patchwork quilt, irrigated green against the dusty tan of the Kawabean desert. Life is hard here, but it is satisfying as well. Marakani's population numbers 20,000 or less, and at times it seems that everyone living there knows everyone else.

Prefect Vander Hassan was not a native of Marakani, or even of Kawabe. He had been born and raised on neighboring Shaul Khala, and it was said that the malicious glint in his eye was that of the Saurimat.the predatory secret society of mercenary assassins native to that world. He had arrived on Kawabe, it was rumored, as hired bodyguard for the chief executive of Kawanashi Engineering. When the workers' revolt broke out at the Kawanashi plant in Eibo. Hassan was in the right place at the right time, managing to blunt the workers' rush toward the administration bunker with a heavy machine gun cradled in his massive arms...and to save Kawanashi's president from an unpleasant death at the hands of the mob at the same time. His position as Prefect over the Marakani Workers' District was said to be a reward for his services to the firm.

The title 'Prefect’ might be translated as 'chief of police’ on some worlds, or as 'mayor,' or simply as ‘chief bureaucrat.’

Hassan was something of all three, master of the local work force in the employ of Kawanashi Enterprises, keeper of the peace of our town, and our representative before Lord Hideshi, the Planetary Chairman.

Chairman Hideshi was the ruler of Kawabe. but he was far away in the capitol at Itamiyama. So far as we were concerned, Hassan was our absolute monarch, feudal lord and master of 20,000 souls.

He looked like an absolute monarch, too, when I brought Holmes before him late that afternoon, at the-Pretecture Headquarters on the hill above the town. The Judgement Hall was a place of austerity, of bare tile floors and a frosted glass ceiling that admitted diffuse, white sunlight. The few art objects on their pedestals about the room were enhanced by the spartan interior: a porcelain bowl so thin it was translucent, a tower of fantastic and chimerical beasts carved from jade, an alabaster vase of haunting simplicity. Hassan, whatever the people In the street said of the man, was a man of delicate artistic sensibilities. Dressed in his red robe of judgement, he reclined on the divan on its dais at the end of the hall.

Before him on a table were arranged the bottles and pouches Holmes had been carrying inside his robe when we'd arrested him. They were patent nostrums mostly, tonics and waters to promote health and heal sickness. There were a goodly number of charms as well, small, carved figurines hanging from silken scarves, designed to be worn about the neck to ward off evil or mechanical failure. The workmanship was quite good, and I wondered if Holmes had made the charms himself, or if he had bought a consignment from elsewhere and was peddling them as middle man.

It made little difference. The luck charms had not helped him.

Holmes made the required obeisance, then stood with a barely suppressed tremble, awaiting judgement. Among the scattering of minor nobles and Guidance Corpsmen in the hall, there was little doubt about what that judgement would be.

'Corpsman Yancey!’

I stepped forward, snapped my best parade-ground salute, and responded. 'Here. Lord!'

‘You were witness to my instructions to this person last week, were you not?*

'i was, Lord.' Hassan was going by the

book on this one. Could he have been sensing unrest among thecitizens under the hard hand of his rule? It was impossible to say. Certainly, in a situation where he was both accuserand arresting power, judgeand jury, he had to take care that his judgement appear fair, that it follow accepted and approved tradition.

‘Then you know that I, myself, commanded that he cease peddling his wares in the streets of this city.’ He indicated the table and the handful of wares displayed there. ‘He has continued to peddle his...wares despite our merciful warnings.’

'l heard your command. Lord. lt is true.'

Hassan turned on Holmes, who now was trembling openly. Then there can be but one judgement, is that not so?' He smiled, a sight to chill the soul.

‘Mercy!’ Holmes cried out, and he tell face down at the foot of the dais. ‘Mercy, for my family's sake!’

Hassan laughed. ‘Your family will be cared for, out of the munificence of the Company. Take him away.’

I was glad that my part in the business went no further than returning Holmes to his cage, that it was Hassan's chief executioner who took over from there. The man had been fairly warned, tried, and condemned by the proper civil authorities. There was certainly nothing I could do, no reason for me to attempt to obstruct justice.

Yet I wondered at the sickness in my soul as I gave Executioner Orioff the key to Holmes' cage.

‘Well, thankee!' Orioff said in his cheerful way. 'We'll give him tonight to think about it, and start first thing in the morning!'

I struggled not to be sick.

Such feelings had been becoming more and more common as I watched Lord Hassan secure and build upon his power in Marakani. The structure within which most of the citizens worked was no different than that in a thousand other towns and villages across Kawabe. no different, I daresay, than the conditions in tens of thousands of cities across the vast expanse of the mighty Draconis Combine. Marakani was dominated by Kawanashi Enterprises, a corporate entity that served as mother and father and family to us all. The corporate rule was, on the whole, benevolent. Corporate schools trained our children, corporate hospitals cared for our sick, corporate stores provided us with all of our needs, redeeming our pay chits with food and housing and the necessities of life. Those citizens who were not directly employed by the Company could barter for those services with produce or goods.

It was only reasonable that Kawanashi's directors did not care to see peddlers and street hawklings such as Holmes shuffling about the streets of Marakani, selling their goods for far less than the Company itself could afford to provide them. While Kawabe's ruling elite did not exactly discourage competition, such practices as deliberately undercutting the Company's prices in an effort to sell inferior goods were frowned upon. Peddlers like Holmes were encouraged to join the Company, in an effort to provide the citizens of the community with uniform excellence of goods and services for sale.

Unfortunately for Holmes, this wasn't possible. He'd been fired from a minor branch company belonging to Kawanashi Enterprises a couple of years before when he'd fallen behind in his rent. Unable to find other work in a town where non-Company jobs were rather scarce, to say the least, he'd been forced to go to work as a street salesman in order to keep his family fed...and to keep up with the debt he owed the Company. His records showed he'd been threatened with arrest a number of times already... usually when he was behind on his payments. Still, he might have been able to struggle along, until Prefect Hassan decided to shut down the city's independent merchants. Marakani's independents had been warned repeatedly for the past several weeks that they would have to pack up and move elsewhere, that their services would no longer be needed in this city. I. myself, had taken Holmes in only the week before, to hear Hassan's personal warning that he had to get out of town. If he chose to ignore that warning, it was his own look out, right?

Yet why did it feel as though my honor had been soiled?

And to the people of Kawabe. honor is everything.

I could feel the resentment of the people of I the city, as tangible and heavy as the I heat, as I resumed my foot patrol through the dusty, sun-baked streets. It felt as though the eyes of all the people were on Okabi and me as we made our way past market stalls and through crowds that seemed to turn quiet once the two ot us appeared. A Civilian Guidance Corpsman's uniform is designed to call attention to its wearer The red and white stripes on forearms and shins, the red and white cap with its leather hood, even the stunner ostentatiously displayed at the left hip all are designed to make the police highly visible, a deterrence to crime and a comfort to law-abiding citizens.

We are known, in fact, as friendly persuaders,' but Okabi's expression beneath the brim of his cap was anything but friendly now. His dark eyes glinted like obsidian chips, and his normally impassive mouth was twisted into an unreadable expression.

I knew my face must bear the same message.

‘Vance.’ Okabi said. ‘That one is acting suspicious.’ He jerked his thumb toward the marketplace, and l saw the look of stark terror spread across one farmer's face as he caught Okabi's gesture and assumed we were talking about him. I had already noted the furtiveness of his behavior, the way he kept looking to left and right and over his shoulder as he threaded his way down the street. He was a typical agroworker. the black muck of the irrigation ditches still clinging to his trousers and boots. He carried the produce he had to sell at the marketplace in a pair of baskets slung from either end of a pole balanced across his shoulders.

The look on his face as he saw Okabi pointing him out was enough to raise my suspicions. Until that day. I would have set after the man at once, ordered him to halt, and searched his person and his bundles. But I saw before me the face of the street peddler, Holmes.

'Let him go,' I said.

Okabi s dark eyes hardened. 'The man is up to something. We should stop him... search him...’

'Let him go!’ My shout was loud enough to drown the subdued hum of conversation around us, to turn heads in our direction. The farmer hurried off into the crowd, thanking whatever gods he knew that he'd been allowed to pass. What had he been up to? I didn't know, nor did I care.

'We are bound of our honor to serve the Prefect,’ Okabi said carefully. He was staring hard at me.

‘Honor?’ I said.

The word bore a great weight for the people of Kawabe. as it did for many of the peoples of the Draconis Combine. A man was raised from birth to know the paths of honor and the webwork of responsibilities that bound him to his parents, his family, his city, his lords, and his way of life. To break any of those bonds was to sever or stain those bonds of honor, and. for most Kawabeans, death was preferable.

‘Honor.’ Okabi replied. ‘Hassan is our lord, and we are bound by our honor to serve him.' The dark eyes narrowed beneath the visor of his cap. ‘We are bound by oath to serve him. and to fulfill our duties.'

I nodded to the people in the street around us, shopkeepers and vendors, beggars and hawklings, merchants and moneylenders. 'These are our people. Okabi. I was born and raised in a town not twenty klicks from here. You were raised here, in Marakani. Don't we have an honor-bond with them as well?’

'That man could have been smuggling food from the country. Or been dealing in black market Company chits Or be carrying weapons.'

‘l don't care’ I searched for the man but couldn't see him any longer. He'd been swallowed by the crowd. Bitterness crowded my thoughts. 'Whatever he was up to, I hope he gets away with it'

‘You are thinking of the man we arrested earlier. Holmes.’

‘What of it? What did he do to deserve having Lord Hassan descend on him that way? How much was Holmes' street business hurling the Company? If he was lucky – very lucky—Holmes's might have made ten thousand a year...and most of that would have gone to pay his back debts to the Company.’

'And tomorrow his fresh skin will be displayed on the drying racks outside of headquarters. I know. But ours is the way of bushido.'

The expression on Okabi's face as he said it told all. Bushido—the Way of the Warrior—was the ancient warrior's code brought to Kawabe centuries before from old Earth itself. It bound us to our master, Prefect Hassan, in our willingness to kill and in our willingness to die. I knew Okabi was as hurt by Holmes's arrest as I was... but he would die by his own hand before he would betray his master. I was subject to the same code. I had grown up on Kawabe, and the people and their ways were my own.

But there was agony in serving this foreigner who exploited my people, as there was agony in considering his betrayal.

My place of duty the following day was in the Judgement Hall as part of Lord Hassan's personal guard. The Prefect occupied his divan on the raised dais at the end of the hall. A servant stood beside him, a bowl of kiwi grapes in her hands, from which he helped himself from time to time. Around his fat neck was a silken band, and one of the luck charm pendants Holmes had been selling dangled at his breast.

‘First on the day's agenda,’ he said. 'On the matter of the street hawkling, Holmes. He still owes a considerable debt to the Company, which, unfortunately, he is no longer able to pay. His account shall be settled today, through his surviving family.'

The family was there, in the hall before him. Holmes's wife was an older woman, once beautiful, but careworn and ragged now in the widow's white garb of mourning. His son was tall and lean and heavily muscled, with defiance and dread mingled in his eyes. Holmes's daughter, a slender girl in her early teens, was radiantly beautiful. Where her father had been short and dark, she was tall, with long auburn hair and eyes haunting in their fear.

‘You!' Hassan barked from his divan. His hand indicated the mother. ‘Old woman. You can do housework, I suppose? Clean? Cook?'

‘Y-yes, Lord...’ Her voice was rough and tortured, her eyes on the luck charm around Hassan's throat.

Then you shall be found work as a domestic. I know an official in the Company who can use your services at his estate. Two years, indentured service. You.' He scowled at the boy. The Company will be able to use you. The Ginoyama mines for you, I'd say. Three years' indenture.’ His eyes fell on the daughter, and the expression on his face made it clear that he'd been saving the best for last. ‘For you, my dear, I think we can find something very, very special.'

He beckoned, but the girl was unable to move. She was shaking, her arms folded in front of her.

‘Come forward!' he demanded. 'Guard! Bring her to me!’

One of the other Guidance Corpsmen in the room took her by one arm and walked her up to Hassan. Hassan watched them approach, his eyes sparkling with unconcealed anticipation. ‘I'd like to have a better look at you, my dear. Undress. Display for us your charms...'

'I protest!’

The shout from across the hall caught everyone by surprise. Hassan half rose from his divan, glowering at the interruption.

Okabi stood in the hall, the light from skylight above gleaming along the curve of the wakizashi,the short sword, in his hand. Okabi was off duty this day, and for that reason alone would not have been permitted to enter the Judgement Hall with a weapon, but the formal wakizashiwas counted on Kawabe more as personal ornament than weapon, an emblem of honorable citizenship for anyone of the warrior class. The blade held aloft, he approached Hassan's divan, stopped, and kneeled ten paces before the Prefect's dais. Weapons around the room swiveled to cover him, ready to cut him down, but his posture and his expression froze every man in the place.

'I protest. Lord,' Okabi said again. He was not wearing his Guidance Corps uniform, of course, but a simple white robe over tunic and trousers. He loosened his belt as he knelt, then brought the knife down to his stomach, and I knew at that moment that he was preparing to commit seppuku.To die to save his honor.

Okabi must have felt trapped, as I felt trapped, caught between his obligation to his lord and his own sense of what was right and wrong. Unable to resolve the conflict, he was about to choose the one alternative that would give him an honorable way out. I saw Hassan's eyes widen with surprise. As a native of another warrior people, he would know what it meant to face death, but I wondered if he understood the conflict his actions had set afire within Okabi...and in myself.

'You'll stain the floor. Okabi,' Hassan said slowly. His eyes found mine. ‘You... guard. Take his knife before he hurts someone.'

I stepped forward, my feet leaden. Okabi watched me come, the blade still catching the light, grasped between his hands wilh the point against his belly.

When does a master cease being a master? When he behaves like an animal, a creature no longer worthy of respect? Or when the servant is forced to choose between personal virtue and the empty ritual of service to another?