The Book of Ruin: The Book of Ruin Series, #1

By W.G. Hladky

Winner of the 2020 IndieReader Discovery Award for Science Fiction

 

Generations after solar storms sent the world spiraling into a Second Dark Age, descendants of American soldiers defend the last NATO stronghold in Germania. From the Asiatic Steppes comes the mysterious Vucari. NATO sends Senior Chief Loveboy Weir and a team of rangers to investigate. Traveling in anti-gravity vessels, they visit the beautiful city-state of New Reykjavik and mountains where Kazaks use giant eagles to hunt enemies. The rangers also journey to the City of Ghost that spews poison and to a floating monastery where monks protect the Book of Ruin. They also encounter Vladimir the Resurrected, the Vucari's warrior prince, who claims to want peace but decimates any population that resists him. Weir struggles to convince NATO not to trust Vladimir. While politicians and clerics make backroom deals to appease Vladimir, Weir prepares for a war he fears is coming...

 

Praise for The Book of Ruin

"War, greed, and political infighting still take center stage in W.G. Hladky's wonderfully detailed and well researched dystopian novel, The Book of Ruin, which imagines life after a solar storm sends Earth into a second Dark Age and-with only a half-remembered past-industry and civilization start afresh." - IndieReader

• Language: English
• Publisher: Middle River Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393299844

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The skies flashed cosmic white. Everything stopped working. People found themselves naked, and fire had to be rediscovered. Predator and prey lost their meanings because everybody was both. " Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down, " again described the plague. Cain struck Abel and Abel struck back. Realms fell. Lineages ended. And lands depopulated… Yet thirteen generations after the Flash, as the Second Dark Age came to an end, some remembrances of things past survived.

—From the Book of Ruin

1

THE HUNGARIAN RIMLAND

YEAR 326 EAF (ERA AFTER THE FLASH), DURING THE 12TH LUNISOLAR

The skimmer floated soundlessly just below the forest canopy. Senior Chief Weir stood in its open cockpit, only his head poking above the tree cover. Weir peered through binoculars he had found at an archaeological site. He preferred the antique to the inferior spyglasses the guild made. Weir twisted the focus knob to scan the Hungarian plain and spotted smoke rising near the horizon. Red-tusked vultures, looking like black dots, circled the smoke.

Scheiss, another Jihadi attack.

Circling buzzards meant the Jihadists hadn’t yet departed. Only after humans left a kill site did Red-tusks land and feast.

Weir left the concealment of the Carpathian foothills and piloted the manta-ray-shaped skimmer into the grasslands. He kept the vessel at mid-speed so he could navigate just above the tall grass to make the skimmer hard to detect.

Weir reached the source of the smoke, which no longer rose tall and dark, but wafted white along the ground. What had not been stolen had been burned. The killers were gone and Red-tusked vultures now feasted on the dead: twenty Caspian traders and their camelophants. The senior chief landed the skimmer and pushed his goggles to his forehead. He sicced his clashhound to chase off the buzzards. Scores of them took to the sky to circle.

The senior chief signaled his clashhound to return to the skimmer to sniff for intruders. He worried Jihadists might return if they saw vultures circling, evidence that somebody had stumbled upon their handiwork. The clashhound—a chimeric cross between an extinct dire wolf and a mastiff—bounded to the skimmer’s bow.

Weir studied the scene—it looked nothing like a Jihadi massacre. Jihadists took teeth to sell at the Port of Crimea’s enamel market. These traders still had their teeth. Jihadists stole camelophants; instead, the killers had slit the pack animals’ throats. Jihadists left graffiti extolling God’s greatness. Weir saw no graffiti.

This is not good, he mumbled to himself. Das is nicht so gut, he repeated, this time in Teutone.

Somebody new had come to the Hungarian rimland.

Weir removed a mission book from a thigh pocket and opened it to where a graphite pencil bookmarked a page. He sketched the scene and recorded distances. The dead lay disemboweled, like they had been field-dressed. Guts lay scattered about. Meat had been stripped out of the torsos. Weir found the sight a little odd, but he chalked it up to Red-tusks feeding. The butchery was quick, for the killers left behind no campfires.

Weir next collected evidence—a knife left behind, pony droppings, rope used to tie up the traders. He crouched to inspect a piece of glass he noticed on the ground. Glass was precious; it could be melted and remolded, making it cheaper than new glass.

Suddenly the clashhound gave a low growl. The rustling of prairie grass caught Weir’s attention too. He signaled the clashhound not to move. Withdrawing his Hegemony sword from the back of his tactical vest, he instinctively spun in his crouched position, swinging his sword up, decapitating a leaping assailant in midflight. The man’s head fell to Weir’s right and the torso to his left, the right hand still clutching a scimitar. Weir stayed crouched. He rotated three-sixty, ready for a second attack. It did not come. The clashhound sniffed the area clear. The sword kept the death silent; the sound from his Howdah pistol would have traveled many klicks, alerting others in the area.

Weir wiped his blade against the attacker’s pant leg. He returned the sword to its wooden scabbard, which had snapped open along its length when the senior chief grabbed the handle. The blade touched a magnet embedded in the sheath, and coils closed the scabbard, encasing the sword.

Weir picked up the head by its long dirty hair and looked at the face of a rim bandit. Rim bandits roamed the rimlands and belonged to no city-states. They survived by thievery, not by massacring. A laceration to the back of the head suggested that the bandit had been knocked out and left for dead. Probably woke after I arrived. The senior chief pried the scimitar from the bandit’s lifeless hand to inspect it. The steel wasn’t Jihadi and was way too fine for a bandit. The scene didn’t make sense.

Maybe the soothsayers can figure it out.

Weir bagged the head and hung it on the skimmer’s stern to keep the stench away from the open-air cockpit. He stripped off the bandit’s clothing and examined the body—it had the normal bandit tattooing. He copied the tattoos into his mission book and then looked around for tracks. There they were. About fifty ponies had left the scene heading southwest. He wanted to follow, but he had been on long-range reconnaissance for two lunisolars and needed to return to brief the new crew before they left on their winter run.

Among the dead, Weir found two small clay urns of salt-cured fish eggs and three bottles of Slavonic vodka that had survived theft and destruction. His people would appreciate the bounty. An uptick of attacks on Caspian and Baltic merchants had slowed their treks to Teutonic-America to trade in such delicacies.

Letter sent to NATO’s Officer Candidate School

Hey babe,

Thought you’d enjoy this gossip. A rim bandit who snitches for BT told her the Jihadists sent a delegation west last year. They hoped to convince the Shadowlanders to join them in a war alliance against NATO. The Shadowlanders turned them down—they still hadn’t recovered from their last go-around with NATO. They flayed alive the Jihadi delegates, made cloaks out of their skins and returned their heads to the Caliphate Sea. BT and I had a good laugh. The Jihadists should know better than to try to negotiate with nano-addicted primitives. Enclosed is Dom’s portrait of me. Sorry, it’s not a nude. Got to get back to my rock. Lady Jane has commissioned a sculpture for Chateau Benedict. Think of me when you bathe. I think of you. Study hard.

Love and kisses,

Ilsa

2

TEUTONIC-AMERICA

YEAR 326 EAF, DURING THE 12TH LUNISOLAR

Weir pulled the scarf tight around his neck. A front had brought the season’s first freeze, causing hoarfrost to cover the early morning landscape. He banked the skimmer to follow the Danyou River upstream. After completing the turn, he spotted a skimmer racing at full throttle just above the river. It had the black-and-green camouflage markings of a reconnaissance skimmer, the same class that Weir piloted.

The speeding skimmer jumped the river bank, leapt over trees and clipped leaves, dropped down to wheel around an outcrop, side-slipped into a ravine, and then shot straight up to about 500 meters where it stopped. The skimmer went into freefall. It pulled up just above the river where it barrel-rolled several times before leveling off to sprint less than a meter above the water.

Weir got into the skimmer’s slipstream and nudged its stern, not enough to throw the craft into a spin, but enough to let the pilot know he was on his six. Rookie Ranger Gisela Muller looked back, her face slackening in embarrassment. She slowed her skimmer to a hover as Weir pulled alongside. Muller pushed down her goggles so they dangled around her neck.

Sorry, senior chief. Won’t happen again, senior chief, Muller said. Weir had caught Muller violating the rule on prisoner transport: While conveying prisoners, rangers shall skim in a steady manner, avoiding all unnecessary maneuvering. The two shackled prisoners strapped in seats behind Muller looked green. Vomit ran down their chins.

Muller had shown Weir some of the best piloting he had seen in years. He couldn’t tell her that, for it would fuel her cockiness, but he didn’t want to dampen her spirit.

Did the same thing when I was a rookie, Weir said. Carry on Ranger Muller, in a statelier manner.

The senior chief pulled back the stick and pushed the throttle forward, making levers and pulleys move the anti-gravity propulsion orbs closer together to create thrust. He leveled off at 2,000 meters. Weir heard only wind and the normal creaking of a wood skimmer in flight. The shimmering yellow propulsion orbs generated power soundlessly.

The skimmer traveled 180 klicks before Weir flipped over the hourglass. The skimmer suddenly shuddered with an unexpected reduction of lift. Weir scanned the sky and spotted an aurora ribbon on the eastern horizon.

Not again.

Ribbons inexplicably drained orbs of power.

He glided the skimmer to a hard landing. Weir walked around the skimmer, which was twelve strides long and eighteen strides wide, to check for damage. He paid special attention to the triangular wings that curved slightly down from the fuselage. Everything appeared intact.

Better have maintenance look at it anyway.

By mid-morning, the aurora ribbon had gone and the propulsion orbs recharged. Weir lifted off and soon reached Teutonic-America, a fertile realm sandwiched between the Bohemian and Alpine mountains. A thin layer of snow covered the landscape; underneath, fallow fields awaited spring planting. Streams of smoke rose from farmhouses, while trading boats plowed the river and wagons and horseback riders moved over the roads.

Weir spied Obama City’s skyline. American NATO soldiers, who had no way to return home after the Flash, built Obama City on the Danyou’s right bank. Their descendants called themselves Americans and considered Obama City and the surrounding lands American territory. The city got its name from a mythical warrior. All that was known of him came from a prehistoric one-page manuscript, partially burned, which told about how he slayed the monster Osamabin during a ferocious battle at a mystical place called Abbottabad.

The senior chief reduced speed and dropped to four-hundred meters. He entered the city-state from the south, where the White River emptied its chalky waters into the teal-colored Danyou. Castle Command dominated the cityscape. NATO’s flag—a four-point white star set against a blue field—fluttered on top. Halfway up Castle Command, a large sphere containing numerous floors and rooms wrapped around its tall tower. Skimmers came and went from the sphere’s docking ports. From a distance, the skimmers looked like birds flying around a grand temple looking for places to nest.

Castle Command had been a Induktiv-Sendemast. Built by the Old Ones, Induktiv-Sendemasts were giant spires that stood throughout the land. The term in old Teutone meant inductive transmission tower. Folktales described Sendemasts, before the Flash, flinging into the air a wireless energy that, when absorbed, powered carriages.

Weir arrived mid-afternoon. The weather had warmed, causing snowmelt to wet surfaces. The sky was infinite blue, and the air smelled fresh and clean. Weir lazily circled Obama City, soaking up the sun. The white cobblestone streets gave the city-state a bright hue. Weir thought of his childhood—back then, depending on the weather, streets were either dusty or muddy. The city-state had no coin for paving since every resource went toward war. That changed after his father’s victory at Molenreich.

He counted twenty barges from Guntergrass unloading goods. Named for a prophet who preached against war, the Teutone city lay 125 klicks upriver from Obama City. The two city-states ruled Teutonic-America in partnership.

Weir spied an eatery among the many shops that sat on the edge of a promenade running along the Danyou’s bank. He and Ilsa often dined there; he missed those occasions. He saw its owner sweeping the promenade in front of the eatery. The owner, like all residents, incessantly swept, scrubbed and washed his place and the promenade in front of his business. The Americans joked that they picked up this habit from the anal Teutones. Everybody in Teutonic-America, however, obsessed over cleanliness as a way to combat illnesses and pestilence. No known remedies existed for someone afflicted with the plague.

Weir docked his skimmer at the castle’s sphere between a floating command skimmer and a transport skimmer. Two reconnaissance skimmers floated one level below, moored at the magistrate’s sally port.

First stop, the soothsayers.

Colonel Patterson, Weir said after being ushered in to see his boss.

Senior Chief Weir, Eleanor Patterson replied.

They exchanged salutes. Weir directed his canine to a corner where the colonel kept bowls of water and food for visiting clashhounds. Patterson pointed to a chair, indicating she wanted the African-American to relax. Nobody knew where to find Africa-America, but the term stuck to describe dark-skinned Americans.

The colonel studied Weir. The public thought rangers of the Special Air Land Reconnaissance Force popped out of the womb, swaggering with tall, strapping bodies and chiseled faces. Weir wasn’t that type. Although sinewy under his fatigues, he was of normal height and normal build with a normal face. Passersby would not give him a second glance. If they caught his eyes, however, they would see a look of folded steel. Patterson preferred soldiers like Weir. She found those who strut somewhat brittle.

How’s your health?

She inquired not out of politeness. Illnesses came on suddenly and small injuries often sprouted infections difficult to control. The colonel wanted her senior chief fit.

Health is good, colonel. Just a little tired from the return push. How’s the family?

We’re fine. Lady Edie is studying newly found texts at Reinhard Yard. Franklin is at Brymore.

Reinhard Yard was a university known for its studies in pre-Flash thought. Brymore was a boarding school. Both were located in city-state’s English Quarter, named for the classical language of learning.

Doesn’t Franklin have a birthday coming up? Weir asked.

He’ll turn sixteen next lunisolar.

Got to get him a gift.

Don’t spoil him. You know how my wife gets.

Speaking of spoiling somebody. Weir placed a bottle of Slavonic vodka on her desk. She picked it up and examined it.

I’d hate for it to get around that you again have successfully corrupted your superior. Patterson placed the bottle in a drawer.

Consider it a family gift.

They were family. Patterson was married to Weir’s older sister, Edie, a scholar in pre-Flash literature. Custom allowed Patterson’s brother to impregnate Edie to give her and Eleanor a child with both familial bloodlines. Franklin was that child. Although family, Weir kept his dealings with the colonel formal. Rank made her a player in castle politics, and he didn’t want to be pulled into that game.

Colonel, you need sun, Weir said.

Although she still had the strong angular face that years of combat and conditioning had shaped, she lacked color. On top of that, her short military-cut hair had grayed.

Patterson inspected her pale muscular arms. You’re probably right, but work keeps me indoors. She removed her spectacles and rubbed her temples. My eyes are still getting used to these, she said, referring to the reading glasses Weir’s rangers bought her as a birthday gift.

Your eyes better get used to them, Weir replied. Guntergrass spectacles aren’t cheap.

And I thank you for these. Coffee?

You got coffee?

Tehranian traders arrived two days ago from the Caliphate Sea. I was able to purchase a kilo. Patterson shouted to an aide for two cups of coffee.

They traveled across the Caliphate Sea up the Damn-You River? Weir asked. Rangers often called the Danyou the Damn-You River for the many skirmishes fought near its waters.

That’s affirmative, Patterson replied.

I’m surprised the Jihadists didn’t kill them.

Unless they bribed them, or… Patterson winked, …they’re Jihadi spies. Senior Chief Jones has her team following them around Teutonic-America as we speak.

Parker Jones transferred back to a team? The transfer astonished Weir more than the coffee. Jones had been Patterson’s adjutant.

She agreed to it, Patterson said. "She kept getting into pissing contests with officers. I had to get her away from Castle Command before someone convinced the general to court martial her. You know what she told Major Sinclair when he complained that she wasn’t properly God-fearing? He is YOUR God; they are YOUR rules; YOU burn in hell…sir."

She used that old line on the general’s son?

That’s affirmative. Patterson and Weir laughed. "Shortly after she transferred back to a team, she named her new clashhound Priest. She calls him to her by name whenever the clergy are nearby." They laughed again.

An aide entered and handed cups of coffee to Patterson and Weir. Both took sips.

I know it’s a little weak, but I’m trying to make the kilo last, Patterson said.

It tastes just fine, colonel, Weir replied. You know how long it’s been since I’ve had coffee?

The aide returned and handed a piece of paper to the colonel. She scanned it, the preliminary results on the evidence Weir collected at the slaughter site.

The soothsayers agree with you, Patterson said. She reported as she read, Jihadists didn’t kill the traders. The rope has a Slavic weave. The ponies didn’t travel from the Caliphate Sea. The poop you collected showed they munched on grass from the Great Steppes. Whoever rode those ponies probably came through the Carpathians using the Zakko Pass. On the other hand, the bandit you killed roamed this side of the mountains. The soothsayers didn’t recognize the head, but his tattoos identified him as a member of the Tobor tribe. The Tobors don’t hang with Caspian traders, so he probably was one of the attackers. The question remains: what is a local rim bandit doing with pony riders from the eastern steppes?

Send the head to BT. Maybe she’ll recognize the face.

Already scheduled.

The colonel continued to read. A scowl caused the scar on her right cheek to become more pronounced. The scimitar and knife are not from any known forgeworks. Because of their high-quality, the soothsayers believe the blades came from a well-heeled city-state.

Do the soothsayers suspect a city-state?

No, but they are confident the blades came from one anyway, though not one we know about.

Patterson directed Weir to a map unfurled on a table. Patterson stared at the map. Besides pony poop, you brought me a strategic turd. Any way I turn it, I see shit.

Thought you needed something to play with during baby Jesus’ solstice birthday.

Patterson didn’t respond. She was too deep in thought.

The Caspian traders probably bumped into a scouting party. They killed the traders to keep their presence secret, thinking the Red-tusks and pitboars would erase any trace of the massacre, but you came along. Patterson studied the map. We may be facing a large migration. She placed a finger on the map. Once they get through the mountains, they can shoot right up the Damn-You toward us.

Why don’t you send a team east of the Carpathians to find out who they are?

Just what I was thinking.

When do I leave?

Patterson turned to face Weir. Loveboy, why don’t you skip this one? You’re not young any more. You and your team need rest. You’ve been pushing them and yourself pretty hard. I can send Parker Jones and her team.

Weir winced when she called him Loveboy. She knew Weir disliked the name, as well as his middle name, Godfrey, but she called him Loveboy to underscore the moment as personal, not official.

I know the Steppes better than anybody else, Weir said. Are you ordering me not to go?

Patterson sighed. She wanted to believe that Weir sought the mission because he still had piss and vinegar. That wasn’t it. She knew long-range missions helped Weir take his mind off Ilsa’s death.

Okay, if approved, you and your team will leave after the holidays. Now go home, jock down, spend time relaxing.

Komm Hund, Weir ordered the clashhound.

Why don’t you give him a name? Patterson asked.

I did, he’s name is Hund.

That’s Teutone for dog.

At least I didn’t name him Loveboy or Godfrey.

Weir smiled when he spotted Gisela Muller and her clashhound leaving the magistrate’s law court where she booked her two prisoners.

So, you want to tell me what that stunt skimming was all about? Weir asked as their clashhounds smelled each other’s butts.

I warned them; I really did, said Muller, referring to the four rim bandits she caught stealing a cow from a rimland farmer, but the snapperheads tried to cut me. My first round squibbed. So, I smacked the closest guy with the rifle stock, cut open the next guy’s gut with my trench knife, and Sissi ripped out the third guy’s carotid, didn’t ya, girl. Muller knelt to rub the clashhound’s ears, her tail wagging. Senior Chief, we really got to get better percussion caps.

How did you get the fourth guy?

I knocked him out with a rock.

Weir easily pictured what happened. The bandits made the mistake that others had made. They thought a young, short, tight-bodied, Teutone blonde would be incapable of shackling them.

You decided to repay the two surviving arschlochs by taking them on a puke run. He shouldn’t have, but he laughed at the thought of the prisoners retching.

Weir liked this girl. She just needed seasoning. She was a Teutone orphan sent to the Americans for military training. The Church deemed her too rebellious to live among the orderly people of Guntergrass. Weir believed the Church policy of banishing those thought to have violent tendencies stupid. But Weir understood why Muller freaked out the Teutone clergy. When he first met her during her naturalization ceremony, Weir thought she was a dyke because she was so butch. But she loved to flirt with the boys.

Colonel Patterson is transferring me to your team, Muller said.

What happened this time?

I broke the petty chief’s jaw with a back roundhouse.

Why did you do that?

He kicked Sissi. Nobody kicks my clashhound. He’s never liked Sissi because she always outperforms his mongrel.

How long did Colonel Patterson have you stand at disciplinary attention before she released you to go on mission?

Most of a day.

That’s a good sign. That means she thinks you’re salvageable.

I also have to do a shift of command escort duty.

Ouch, Weir said. He and his clashhound headed for his skimmer. We’ll have to work on your anger management.

3

THE HUNGARIAN RIMLAND

YEAR 327 EAF, DURING THE 1ST LUNISOLAR

Rangers Nick Nassim and Maddy Lash found the farmsteaders sitting in the dirt in front of their cabin. A barn with its doors open sat nearby. The husband, wife and their two children were tied back-to-back. The farmsteaders, blood seeping from their mouths, said nothing. As the rangers floated their skimmer closer, the husband and wife shook their heads and screamed. Their open mouths revealed their tongues had been cut out.

Their clashhounds growled alerts. The rangers heard a snap, a whistle and a thud. The rangers felt the skimmer shake.

What just happened? Lash asked.

Nassim looked over the side. He saw a rope running from the skimmer’s underbelly to the open barndoor. Think we just got hit with some sort of harpoon, he replied.

Lash, in the pilot’s seat, lurched the skimmer up to escape, but the rope attached to the harpoon held the skimmer ten meters above the ground.

Let’s E and E it on foot, Nassim said, referring to escape and evade.

Lash pointed to the large group of pony riders cresting a nearby ridge. We won’t make it.

Scheiss, Nassim said.

The rangers scrambled below deck to search for the harpoon head and found it embedded in the hull between the bow and stern. Using trench knives, they chipped away wood in an attempt to free it.

They heard clashhounds topside snarling, then felt the skimmer shudder and drop.

They’re pulling us down! Nassim shouted.

Their trench knives attacked the wood with more ferocity. The skimmer shuddered and jerked until it touched the ground. The sound of boots boarding the skimmer’s open-air cockpit vibrated below deck.

Go topside. I’ll keep working here, Lash said.

Topside, Nassim saw both clashhounds mauling boarders. Three already lay dead. The attackers slashed at the animals. One of the boarders got in the way of a blade meant for a clashhound and lost his head just before his comrades killed the animal. The other clashhound fell overboard with several deep lacerations.

Intruders rushed Nassim. He shot two with his double-barrel Howdah pistol; its large slugs threw them backwards. But a fresh wave of boarders ran past their dead and tackled Nassim to the deck, punching and kicking every part of his body. Just before Nassim lost consciousness, he saw boarders entering the hold and heard Lash putting up the same fight he had.

Nassim woke to find himself staked to the ground. Lash lay next to him, also tethered to stakes. She breathed hard, her eyes wide with fear. Their captors stood around them. One unsheathed a long knife. Several others unbuttoned their flies.

These aren’t Jihadists, Nassim said.

Hoka hey! Lash roared to her partner.

Hoka hey! Nassim shouted back, as his disembowelment and her rape began.

4

OUTPOST EISENFAUST

YEAR 327 EAF, DURING THE 1ST LUNISOLAR

When Gisela Muller mentioned that she had never seen the old battlefield at Molenreich, Lady Edie asked if she wanted to visit the site.

Not necessary, ma’am, Muller said. I’m tasked with getting you to Eisenfaust before the sun is one hand above the horizon.

Uncle Weir will be expecting us, Lady Edie’s son interjected.

Franklin, your uncle can wait, Lady Edie said. You just want to get to Eisenfaust to taste Margaret’s pastries.

The sixteen-year-old, his face flushed, looked down.

Ranger Muller should see such a historical place, Lady Edie continued. Molenreich is just a dozen klicks out of our way.

Yes, ma’am, Muller replied. She banked the skimmer toward the battlefield.

Lady Edie explained how her late father, Governor General Lovejoy Weir, defeated the Jihadists.

The Jihadists expected victory because aurora ribbons had grounded our skimmers.

Yes, ma’am. Muller shuddered at the thought of going into battle without skimmers, a weapon of shock and awe that only Teutonic-America possessed.

My father originally deployed his troops there along the length of that ravine, with the Jihadists on the other side, Lady Edie continued. He realized the rugged terrain would prevent the Jihadists from quickly shifting soldiers from one flank to the other,

Yes ma’am. Muller floated the skimmer above the old battleground.

During the night, my father repositioned almost all his cavalry and half his infantry to concentrate against a single point.

Yes ma’am, Muller said.

He attacked at daybreak. The Jihadists couldn’t shift their much larger forces in time to meet the attack. That’s how the Jihadi army was decimated.

Yes, ma’am.

Because of the battle, the Jihadists mostly have stayed south of the Transylvanian Mountains. Yes, we still have problems with bands they send against us, but you’ll never see a raiding party larger than a couple-hundred warriors. Isn’t history fascinating, Ranger Muller?

Ma’am, as your command escort, I’m not allowed to express an opinion.

Loosen up, Ranger Muller.

No, ma’am.

If Muller’s behavior was anything less than by-the-book impeccable, she could get bounced from the elite rangers and be reassigned to the regular military, and she didn’t want to get bounced. It didn’t help that Lady Edie’s status intimidated her. She had never escorted a colonel’s lady, let alone talked to one.

Muller docked the skimmer at Eisenfaust’s Sendemast castle. Unlike Castle Command with its quarters inside a sphere, the smaller Eisenfaust castle had its living and work spaces inside a cylinder-type structure with wraparound balconies. The outpost stood on a hill that overlooked the Danyou River. As she and Lady Edie entered the building, Muller saw trading boats plying its waters. She was surprised to see a village at the base of the hill. Eisenfaust was the southernmost NATO outpost, located 200 klicks downrange from Obama City, close to the Hungarian plains. Jihadists were known to do hit-and-run raids in the area.

Weir entered the castle’s foyer.

Senior Chief! Muller shouted, snapping to attention. She stood erect, eyes straight ahead and not on Weir.

Sister. Weir ignored Muller. He had finished martial meditation movements and sweat stained his meditation robe. He carried a heavy training sword.

Brother.

Weir and Edie Patterson exchanged air kisses. They hadn’t seen each other since the Christmas kinsfolk festival. Weir helped his sister remove her ankle-length surcoat.

Nice. The soft purple surcoat obviously had a high thread count.

Yes, I know. Edie gave Weir a wink. Got to keep up appearances.

Uncle Weir. Franklin and Weir greeted each other with fist-bumps. Fist-bumps had replaced handshakes to reduce the spread of disease. The gregarious, however, still embraced.

A short, well-fed woman in her sixties entered the foyer. She placed Lady Edie in a bear hug and lifted her off her feet. To Muller’s surprise, the embrace caused Lady Edie to laugh.

Welcome home, Edie, said the castle’s matron.

It’s good to be back, Margaret.

The woman, slightly darker than Lady Edie, turned to Franklin. She wrapped him in her arms, pulling him down to kiss his forehead. How you’ve grown. You’re just as tall as your uncle, but not as fat. Margaret backhanded Weir’s stomach, hitting only muscle. The senior chief laughed and Franklin giggled.

And who is this young lady? The African-American matron stood with hands on hips.

Ranger Gisela Muller! The rookie ranger still stood at attention. Escort protocol required her responses to be sharp and loud.

I’d give you a hug, but I see by how awkward and stiff you are that you’re playing command escort.

Muller understood Americans to be friendly and loud, but this woman was the friendliest American she had ever met, and she certainly was loud.

Margaret gave Lady Edie a once-over. Edie, you look magnificent.

Lady Edie wore a flowing purple gown with a keyhole neckline that accented her brown skin.

Margaret fingered Lady Edie’s gold ladyship medallion. Congratulations on being awarded a ladyship, Margaret said. I am so proud of you.

The Bundestag Senate awarded ladyships and lordships to those who had distinguished themselves. Lady Edie received hers for unearthing the Heidelberg scraps during an archaeological dig, which was quite an achievement since so few manuscripts survived the Flash. Before the Flash, scribes wrote mostly on glass, not ink on paper. After the Flash, the words on glass evaporated. The discovery of any paper texts, even shredded, was an important find.

Come with me, Franklin, Margaret said. You must be starved. I just baked some apple strudel.

Can I go, Mother?

Of course, Lady Edie said. But don’t feed him too much, Margaret. Leave room for supper. Margaret and Franklin left the foyer.

Is your visit official? Weir asked Lady Edie.

Of course not; we just tagged along once I learned Ranger Muller would be coming to deliver a command communiqué. Lady Edie gave her brother a wry smile.

Did Ranger Muller behave during the trip? Weir asked.

She was above reproach.

Really? Weir looked at Muller in faux astonishment. Ranger Muller.

Yes, senior chief? Muller said.

Can I get you something to eat or drink?

No, senior chief! Muller was famished, but protocol demanded command escorts turn down all offers. She knew Weir knew that and she knew Weir knew that she knew.

A steaming bowl of eintopf stew with wursts?

No, senior chief! She loved eintopf stew.

North Sanfte Jaeger pilsner?

No, senior chief! She really loved North Sanfte Jaeger pilsner.

Have it your way. Weir escorted his sister into the sun parlor, leaving Muller behind in the foyer. She would stand at attention until they returned, part of Muller’s anger management training.

In the sun parlor, Edie poured herself a pilsner and downed a long gulp.

Boy, I needed that, she said. Do you know how tough it is to stay regal as a colonel’s lady when all I really wanted to do was have a drink with Muller and swap tales of romp?

If it would make you feel better, we could wrestle in the mud like we did when we were kids.

Edie took another swallow. I don’t have time and you don’t have time little brother. You’d lose anyway. Gulp. Eleanor failed to convince the general to allow your team to free-range-it east of the Carpathians.

Edie always got to the point behind closed doors when she didn’t need to charm people to further her wife’s career.

The Church opposes the mission, Edie continued. You’ll go to the steppes, but not to seek intelligence. You will escort two Church envoys to New Reykjavik. The communiqué Muller has will instruct you to select five rangers to accompany you. You’ll take only four skimmers.

Weir nodded that he understood. Castle Command always worried about losing skimmers. NATO only had so many propulsion orbs, a pre-Flash technology nobody understood. NATO had forgotten how to produce them and recent efforts to find more orbs at ancient sites had failed.

We haven’t had contact with New Reykjavik since the massacre of Teutonic Knights, Weir said. Have they forgotten Norselanders hold grudges? They may welcome the envoys just to draw and quarter them.

The Norselanders blamed the Church for convincing Teutonic-America to abandon them in their war with the Jihadists. The Bundestag Senate voted not to send reinforcements to the Norselanders and ordered its Teutonic Knights already at New Reykjavik to withdraw. The knights, however, defied the order, and they perished during a rearguard action. But their valor gave the Norselanders time to defeat the Jihadi army.

Eleanor isn’t worried about what will happen to the envoys, Edie said. She is worried about what will happen if a large migration comes to Teutonic-America.

Weir poured himself a pilsner. What else?

Before you head out, go to Guntergrass. Contact Senator Chalmers. She has been tasked with negotiating mission rules with the Primacy,