Текст книги "Lost Destiny"

Автор книги: Michael A. Stackpole

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

47

JumpShip Dire Wolf , Transfer Orbit

Diosd, Wolf Occupation Zone

12 June 3052

 

Clad in gray ceremonial learners and pinned in place by an overhead spotlight, Phelan held his head high. Standing be– * fore him, on a raised dais and similarly lit from above, Ulric wore a black cloak with a mantle of gray wolf fur and a black-enameled wolf mask. On a raised stand between them stood a golden lamp in the shape of a wolf, the wick rising from the middle of its back guttering gently. Phelan knew other members of the Wolf Clan had gathered outside the intersecting light circles, but he could neither see nor hear them.

'Trothkin, seen and unseen, near and far, living and dead, be of brave heart. Another of your number has been blooded." Ulric's hollow voice filled the room, yet failed to echo back from the walls. "Five batties he has fought, defeating a Star of his peers, and he is victorious. We have all witnessed his contest and none may deny the rede of it."

"Seyla," whispered the invisible Warriors surrounding them.

The wolf's head tipped down toward him. "Phelan, you came to us a bondsman but proved your worth in a way that only a Warrior could. We adopted you, a foundling, into the Warrior Caste and you trained hard to pass your Trial of Position. Given combat duty, you succeeded beyond all expectation, capturing the world of Gunzburg by yourself, and bringing to us the Prince of Rasalhague. Even in this last battle, the losing effort on Tukayyid, you and your people won out where so many other Clans failed."

Phelan smiled at the last comment and he heard a nearly imperceptible rustling among the others in the room. Ulric paused long enough to let the image of the other Clans' failure sink in for his audience. This may be a most solemn ritual, but the ilKhan is not adverse to using it to remind us of the superior things we have done.

"While all those deeds mark you as special, your taking of a Bloodname exalts you above the mere Warriors with and against whom you have fought. Ten and ten and five are the number who bear the same surname as you do. With it, you become a member of the Clan Council and are eligible for election to even greater office and responsibility.

"Your Bloodname has a particularly proud pedigree. Of the fifteen who have worn it before you, ten became Khans. All were known for their skill and bravery in combat. You, winning the Bloodname just after your twenty-first birthday, have already added to its legend by being the youngest Warrior ever to win a Bloodname."

Phelan glanced down as the image of Cyrilla's face floated before his mind's eye. "Do not mourn me, Phelan Wolf. Make me proud of you." Those were her final words to me. I hope I have succeeded.

Ulric took one step forward and his right hand came out from beneath his cloak. "Give me your dagger."

Phelan's right hand fell on the ceremonial silver dagger he had been given when adopted into the Warrior Caste. As he drew the knife and presented the wolf's-head pommel to the ilKhan, his left hand rested over the hound's-head belt buckle he had rescued from Vlad.

Ulric accepted the dagger in his right hand, then took hold of Phelan's wrist with his own left hand. He gently caressed the blade across the palm and bore down only slightly at the edge of his hand. The resulting cut stung and immediately welled up with blood.

Phelan closed his hand into a fist and squeezed hard. A drop of blood fell into the lamp's fire and immediately climbed upward as a puff of smoke. The flame flickered and sizzled for a second, then continued burning brightly.

The ilKhan reversed the knife and returned it to Phelan. "You are now and for all time known among the Clans as Phelan Ward. All are to abide by the rede given here. Thus it shall stand until we all shall fall."

"Thus it shall stand until we all shall fall," echoed the crowd.

The light above Ulric faded to black, leaving Phelan alone in the light. He had expected the room to be empty, as it had been during his adoption ceremony, but as the lights came up, he saw many people seated in the semi-circle of chairs. Immediately he recognized Natasha and Evantha, then saw Conal Ward make his way toward the front of the room. Natasha reluctantly got up and followed him, so Phelan headed back and took up the chair she had abandoned.

Evantha smiled at him. "Welcome, Phelan Ward."

"Thank you, Evantha Fetladral." He jerked his head toward the front of the room where Conal was seated in a chair on the level floor while Ulric—now unmasked—and Natasha both occupied chairs on the dais. "Is this a Clan Council meeting?"

The Elemental nodded solemnly, her red queue rising and falling at the back of her head. "It is indeed. Despite the losses we have taken in the battling, we have a quorum present in the room and"—she pointed at a camera in the corner—"within communication range."

"Why a meeting so fast?"

She smiled. "It may seem swift to you, Phelan, but the meeting has actually been long delayed. We have lost a Khan and we must replace him."

Phelan nodded and looked over at Conal. That man almost became a Khan during the last election, and he is Loremaster now. He's also the bastard who cheated to give Vlad an advantage in our last fight.Almost instantly Phelan-found himself thinking as Cyrilla would have. "Evantha, what are the chances Conal will win?"

"He has his supporters."

The MechWarrior's green eyes burned with a mischievous light. "How would it affect his candidacy if it were revealed he cheated during my Bloodname contest?"

Evantha's smile broadened. "Natasha said you'd ask that question."

"And?"

"She said to tell you the matter has already been discussed and the punishment more than fits the crime."

Conal Ward stood. "I, the Loremaster of this Conclave, do call it to order."

Natasha uncoiled from her chair and stared Conal back down into his. "As you all know, Garth Radick died in the fighting on Tukayyid. This means we must elect a new Khan because there will be a Grand Council immediately following our election today. This will be a very important meeting because of the bargain the ilKhan struck concerning Tukayyid, so we want to choose one who understands what really happened there. I throw the floor open to nominations."

Phelan leaned over to Evantha. "Look, you did great things on Tukayyid. I'll nominate you, okay?"

She frowned. "You must learn to speak properly, Phelan, if you expect to get anywhere in the Clan Council."

"Does that mean no?"

"That means wait and see what we are up against."

Conal pointed slowly to a man in the back. "I recognize you, Kevin Carson."

A youngish man rose and clasped his hands behind his back. "Fellow Wolves, there is only one obvious choice for Khan. He is a man who, leading the Red Wolves, managed to inflict incredible damage on the Com Guards. His unit proved crucial in the final push that drove the Com Guards from the Pozoristu Mountains. Furthermore, he should already have been made a Khan when Ulric was rightfully elevated to the role of ilKhan. I speak, of course, of our Loremaster, Conal Ward. I hereby place his name in nomination."

As Carson seated himself, he noticed Conal had lost some of the color in his face. What is going on?

Natasha leaned forward. "Would you not like to speak to that nomination, Conal?" she asked, her voice rimed with irony.

Conal cleared his throat. "Yes, Khan Natasha, I would." The Mechwarrior stood and nervously folded his hands together. "I am honored by the nomination, but I must decline that honor. I feel it is not my time."

He smiled weakly and glanced at Natasha.

The Black Widow smiled coldly. "And?"

Conal looked stricken. "And while I realize this is a very difficult and critical time for the Wolf Clan, I do not feel I am able to continue in my role as Loremaster. I, ah, hereby tender my resignation, effective immediately."

Natasha's smile grew wider. "And?"

Conal winced. "And I have decided to ask the ilKhan to excuse me from my position in the Red Wolves so I may go out and hunt down bandits."

Natasha nodded slowly. "Is there anything else?"

"Yes, Khan Natasha." Pain writhed across his face like a sidewinder. "I would like to take this opportunity to place in nomination the name of the candidate I, ah, personally believe should be elected as Khan. I throw my full support behind his candidacy. I, ah, nominate Phelan Ward."

Phelan rocked back in his chair as Conal all but collapsed into his seat. My God, they did make the punishment fit the crime.

Evantha stood and Conal recognized her. "I would second the nomination of Phelan Ward. How could we deny this honor to the youngest individual ever to win a Bloodname? Who among us, for all of our glorious actions in battle, has taken a world without a single weapon being fired?" She rubbed at her jaw. "And what MechWarrior among you has defeated a single Elemental in hand-to-hand combat?"

Light laughter greeted her question. "As well, who among us knows so intimately the people we have conquered and will yet have to fight? There is no question as to his qualification for this honor, the question is: are we wise enough to see that?"

Evantha sat back down and slapped Phelan's leg with an open hand. "See? Now you have no need to nominate me."

"What Ulric did to Natasha, you have done to me." Phelan shuddered. "And I thought you were a friend."

"I am, Phelan. I am a friend of yours and a friend of Clan Wolf." She looked over at the ilKhan. "I am his instrument, as are you. Ulric has been grooming you for this since you first showed more intelligence than any other captive. He knew, as did many of the rest of us, that having leadership who could understand the Inner Sphere was vital. Natasha returned to us after half a century of living within the Inner Sphere. You, having been born and trained there, bring a different perspective to things. This knowledge, this enlightenment, must be brought to the Grand Council.

"Besides," she smirked, "watching Conal squirm was fun, quiaff?"

"Aff." Little by little, bits and pieces of things were beginning to fit together. Ulric had constantly probed and tested him, but Phelan had never been able to see the reason behind it before. He had assumed much of what Ulric put him through was to gain information on the Inner Sphere, but he had also known there had to be something else. If not, why would Phelan's understanding of and acceptance into the Clans have been so important? Even more so, Phelan's adoption into the Warrior Caste and his gaining the respect of the others was a goal that Ulric pushed him toward.

I had assumed that Ulric might have seen me as a younger version of himself. That may have been true, but he wanted me to succeed because he wanted a bridge between the Clans and the Inner Sphere. Prince Ragnar is on a similar track. Ulric, perhaps alone among the Khans, realized that if we did conquer the Inner Sphere, we would then have torule it.

Natasha pointed to a woman standing over on the right. "Conal, before you go, I believe you should recognize Katya Kerensky."

Conal grimaced and Katya spoke. "I move we close nominations."

"Seconded," announced Natasha. She smiled again at Conal.

The Loremaster stood wearily. "In light of the motion on the floor, we would be electing Phelan Ward to replace Garth Radick. Given the gravity of the meeting he will attend, I, ah, believe, ah, fervently that we should elect him by acclamation."

"I see no objection to that." Natasha stood and started to clap. Conal joined her half-heartedly, then the others in the Clan Council started in. Evantha grabbed Phelan's shoulder and half-hurled him to his feet, then he walked up the aisle and stood beside Natasha. As the applause died, she sat and winked at him. "Say something."

Phelan took a deep breath and willed his heart to stop pounding so loudly. "Words are insufficient to express what I feel at this moment of great honor. As we all know, words are valueless when compared to actions, so I will let my actions in acquitting this vast responsibility show you how grateful I am." He let a wry smile onto his lips and looked out at everyone assembled in the room. "Let me just add that finally I feel as though I am where, freebirth or not, I was born to be. Thank you."

Applause washed over him again and Phelan could not help smiling broadly. Conal stood and dismissed the meeting with the words, "Thus shall it stand until we all shall fall," and Phelan repeated the words with conviction. I am really home.

He turned to Natasha. "Now that you and Ulric have gotten me into this, what am I supposed to do?"

She looked over at Ulric and the ilKhan smiled. "Be yourself."

The Wolf Clan Council filed out of the room and the room underwent a slow transformation. Panels slid up on the bulkheads to reveal monitors evenly spaced around the room. One by one, they flickered to life. In them Phelan saw the head and shoulders of various Clan Khans. The masks they wore—similar to Ulric's during the ceremony, but appropriate to their Clans—obscured their identities.

The doors at the far end of the room opened and twelve individuals marched in. The Khans of the Clans who had participated in the attack on Tukayyid filed into the rows and sat down in silence. Because they also wore masks, Phelan could recognize none of them, but two—one from the Smoke Jaguars and one from the Steel Vipers—walked with limps he put down to injuries from the recent fighting.

Phelan glanced at Natasha and whispered, "Shouldn't we be wearing our masks?"

The Black Widow shook her head. "Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing ..."

" '... better to think about.' I know. I remember."

The ilKhan stood. "I convene this Grand Council and I note to you that we are still under the Martial Code handed down by Nicholas Kerensky. We are at war, and we shall conduct our business as befits that circumstance."

A Smoke Jaguar stood. "I would challenge that assertion, ilKhan. Your agreement with Anastasius Focht prevents us from continuing our invasion. Yet, while it prevents us from pressing forward, his ComStar forces strike behind our lines. You have not bargained well for us, and we must remove you from office so your agreement with him can be repudiated."

The ilKhan's smile sent a chill through Phelan. "You claim we are no longer at war, then use the fact that we are under attack as justification for what you demand. You have failed to convince me we are at peace."

The Smoke Jaguar nodded slowly. "I accept that judgement reluctantly, but I will not contest it. The matter at hand is most grave, ilKhan. I place before the Grand Council a motion that you have failed to carry out our wishes in striking your deal with Anastasius Focht. You bargained in good faith with a man who is treacherous—as the aforementioned attacks on us show. I say you should be stripped of your office and the agreement with Focht destroyed."

A Nova Cat rose to second the motion and Ulric accepted it with an expressionless face. "The motion is then for my removal and the repudiation of the agreement with Anastasius Focht? Very well, this is what shall be debated. Because we are under the Martial Code, we shall only allow one speaker for and one speaker against the motion."

With his right hand, he motioned toward the standing Smoke Jaguar. "You, Lincoln Osis, will speak for your motion." His left hand swung wide and pointed at Phelan. "And you, Phelan Ward, will speak against it."

The ilKhan half-turned back toward his seat, then straightened around again. "By the way, Lincoln, it may interest you to know that Focht has reported that the Primus who initiated the strikes behind our lines has been retired. As I am certain you know from the few worlds your Clan has occupied, all ComStar resistance has stopped."

What am I going to say?He looked at Natasha, but she just shook her head.

"Be yourself, Phelan. Listen to what Osis offers, then destroy it."

Be myself.He nodded and watched Osis move to the center of the room.

The Elemental opened his arms to encompass all but Clan Wolf members. "Trothkin, we have seen that this agreement only benefits the Wolf Clan. Because ilKhan Ulric has carefully engineered a line across which we will not go for three generations, he will remain IlKhan until he dies, resigns, or is forced out. In this manner, he has assured his dominance over us in a way that Nicholas Kerensky never intended when he created the office of ilKhan."

Osis balled his left hand into a fist and brought it back in toward his shoulder. "Ulric and the Wolf Clan have consistently violated the spirit of our agreement concerning the conquest of the Inner Sphere. In accepting the right to negotiate a battle with Focht, he prevented any of the rest of us from consulting with him or offering advice on the agreement. We are now all bound by a pact that we had no part in creating. Furthermore, Ulric did not act as ilKhan in the assault on Tukayyid. He failed to coordinate our actions, and because of that, our effort to conquer the world was for naught."

The Elemental turned to face Ulric. "Your distaste for this invasion is well known. Your negotiation of this deal with Focht served your goal of stopping the invasion, not our goal of reestablishing the Star League. As war leader, you have brought us peace, and that peace is useless to us. I should not have to call for a vote to remove you, I should only have to listen to you tender your resignation. As you will not do so, I do call for a vote.

"We must strip you of command and press forward to our original goal. That is the will of the Clans. That is the destiny we must fulfill and we shall not let you or your agreement stand in our way."

Osis returned to his seat and Ulric looked at Phelan. The young MechWarrior wished he could read the man's face to learn what he was thinking, know how he would handle things, but he could not. Phelan tugged at his belt and touched the cool metal of the buckle. Be yourself.

"Trothkin," he said almost skittishly as the word nearly stuck in his throat, "I do not have the benefit of knowing what arguments and discussions were offered when the Clans began to move into the Inner Sphere. I was, as you know, captured in one of the first engagements in the Periphery. Because of that, I can only speak to what I have seen of the Clans and what I know of the ilKhan."

Phelan saw a smile slowly spread across Natasha's face and he took heart in it. "You, Lincoln Osis, accused the ilKhan of doing all this for the benefit of his Clan, and you said his reluctance to engage in this crusade was well known. How is it then that the Wolf Clan, whose invasion corridor contained more worlds than any other, has progressed so far and so fast? Are ilKhan Ulric's actions those of a timid, avaricious, or reluctant leader? Clearly they are not."

Phelan narrowed his eyes as he studied the Clan totems placed before him. "The ilKhan has seen what you have not. You all dreamed of an Inner Sphere torn by war and utterly unable to withstand your onslaught. True, their level of technology is not as high as yours, but it approaches it swiftly.

At the end of the first year of your invasions, you had made great headway, but the Inner Sphere had already learned tactics that put you at a disadvantage. At Wolcott, the Draconis Combine beat you at your own bidding game. One member of your own Bloodname House died because he so poorly negotiated that battle. And again at Twycross we tasted defeat."

He clasped his hands at the small of his back. "In the time it took us to elect Ulric ilKhan, the Inner Sphere came together. They trained together and exchanged information. They learned from each other and new technology began to be shared between their ruling Houses. We managed, with a few exceptions, to unite people who had not worked together since before our ancestors left the Inner Sphere. And, yes, we learned, too, during our time away and shifted our tactics, but they beat us."

He pointed at Osis and the other Smoke Jaguar Khan. "You lost a battle for Luthien. The Jade Falcons failed in their attempt to capture Victor Davion. We did take worlds, but these crucial victories eluded us.

"We have dismissed these losses and have blamed them on circumstance. At Twycross, for example, Kai Allard-Liao tricked the Jade Falcons into a trap. On Luthien you met the Wolf Dragoons and the Kell Hounds, in addition to the best the Draconis Combine had to offer. Again on Alyina, Kai Allard spoiled the trap we laid for Victor Davion. Then Allard eluded us for four months and finally ended up freeing ourpeople so that they could liberate the planet from ComStar. And Victor Davion led an elite unit to Teniente to free Hohiro Kurita—who we did not even know we had trapped!"

Phelan felt his heart begin to pound again, but it was no longer from nervousness. Suddenly he saw what Ulric had always wanted from him. I am a fusion between the Clans and the Inner Sphere. I know, I understand, what Ulric could only ever hope was true.He nodded his head, then slammed his fist into his left palm.

"Special people, you say. Special circumstances, you sputter. I disagree with every cell in my body! Yes, Kai is special, and so is Victor and so are the Dragoons and the Hounds and the Genyosha, but they are notunique. There are countless special people in the Successor States. The Com Guards, before they fought us at Tukayyid, were untried forces. The Wolf Dragoons you faced are all orphans adopted at the end of the last war or freeborn offspring of those Wolf Clan members who originally ventured out into the Successor States.

"Look at me. In the Successor States, the only thing remarkable about me was my family and my hardheadedness. Granted the latter has been of help in the Clans, but had I completed the course of study at the Nagelring, I would have been just another MechWarrior—probably not even a Leftenant. Yet here I stand among you, the leaders of the Clans, having commanded a Star and having won a Bloodname."

He pointed back at the ilKhan. "This is the truth the ilKhan has seen. Three hundred years of breeding has not made us all that different from each other. Were we to proceed, it would be the battle of a knife against a grindstone. Yes, we would get sharper, we would win great victories, but in the end, we would be ground away to nothing.

"The ilKhan's agreement with Focht buys us the time we need to prepare ourselves for the future. This invasion will never again know the lightning victories it did at the start. As ComStar showed us, our tactics are not suited to a long, drawn-out conflict. You did not prepare for that and you lost. The Wolf Clan did prepare for that and we won."

Phelan pulled his head up. "The world-by-world conquest and administration of the Successor States will be nothing if not long and drawn-out. In the fifteen short years the ilKhan has bought us, we can prepare the bases we need to continue our conquest. He has been true to his role as war leader because in seeing defeat on the horizon, he has stopped us from rushing headlong into it.

"Remove him, repudiate the deal, and the Clans will be a memory long before the agreement has run its course."

Phelan returned to his seat and Natasha gave him a wink. Ulric graced him with the barest of nods, then turned to the assembled Khans. "You have heard the arguments. Weigh them, then make your decision. Shall the ilKhan be removed and his deal with ComStar rescinded? How say you, children of Kerensky?"

"Nay," he and Natasha cried as one. They smiled at each other because their voices were not in the minority.

As the monitors winked out and the other Khans left the room, Ulric approached him and Natasha. "You were able to point out that of which I could never convince them."

"Thank you, IlKhan." Phelan shrugged. "Of course, the vote was not unanimous, so the losers could have demanded a combat to contest the outcome. Why did they not?"

"Because, Phelan," the ilKhan said, "they knew I would have asked you and Natasha to defend the decision and that would have decided things more than quickly enough." As Phelan and the Black Widow laughed, Ulric pulled a holodisk from inside his cloak. "This is for you."

Phelan hesitated, remembering that the last holodisk he had received was from Cyrilla. "Do I want it?"

Ulric nodded. "I think so. Anastasius Focht had it relayed here to us. You were effective just now because you are part Clan and part Inner Sphere. I never want you to lose that." He pressed the disk into Phelan's right hand. "It is from your father and, among other things, it includes his acceptance of my invitation to visit us here."