18

Kahless took two steps through the knee-deep snow, slashed with his bat’leth, leaped to his left, slashed again, then slid under the legs of the Hur’q as it collapsed face-forward into the snow. To his right, Drex fired the disruptor he held in his left hand at a Klingon warrior while slashing at the throat of an opponent with the blade in his right. Well, Kahless conceded. He is efficient. I’ll give him that.

Drex dodged a third opponent, tripped him up with an extended leg, and when the warrior went sprawling in the snow, Martok’s son shot him in the back of the head. Perhaps too efficient, Kahless decided.

Pausing, the pair quickly checked the immediate vicinity and, deciding they were for the moment not in mortal danger, regarded each other. Inspecting the pile of bodies around them, Kahless asked the boy, “How do you know if the Klingon you’re attacking is an enemy?”

Drex dabbed his hand against his cheek where it had [263] been slashed open. “If they’re running at me, I assume they’re enemies, so I kill them,” he said, panting slightly.

“And if they’re running away?”

“They’re enemies and I kill them.”

Kahless shook his head in baffled amazement. He had been focusing his attentions on the Hur’q, partly because they did not unnerve him the way they seemed to with some of the others and partly because he did not like killing Klingons—any Klingons. Drex, on the other hand, more than made up for the emperor’s hesitation.

Somewhere during their passage across the wide plain, they had lost Darok, which worried Kahless. He had seen mounted warriors ride past just as the battle had been joined and, assuming Martok must be among them, pursued them. Cannon fire had begun and Kahless had thought his troops were lost, but then someone—the riders, perhaps?—had obviously taken control of one or two guns and made short work of guns manned by Gothmara’s troops. Then, the remaining guns had turned their fire on the Hur’q and killed many of them. All in all, despite what seemed like an early advantage for Gothmara’s forces, Martok’s side was doing quite well.

Now, having pursued opponents farther and farther away from the main flow of the battle, he and Drex found themselves at its fringe near a narrow gap. Not wishing to be surprised by new assailants, yet curious about what might lie beyond, Kahless rested and considered. Drex drank from a flask of bloodwine he had brought and grinned maniacally. “A good fight, eh, Emperor?”

Kahless nodded. What else could he do? It was a good fight. His blood, he knew, should be singing, his heart aflame with battle fever. He was a Klingon, some would even say the Klingon. By the evidence of his [264] senses, he was an adequate warrior, but still a shadow of the original. And yet, and yet ...

Perhaps the legend of Kahless being the greatest warrior the empire had ever known was true, but why had everyone assumed that the emperor should enjoy battle? He knew he was only a clone, that the memories he possessed of his life in the dawn of the empire were really only tales extrapolated from myths of a bygone era. But his heart was the heart of Kahless, his blood Kahless’s blood, and it was not aflame nor did it sing. Could it be possible that Kahless, the true Kahless, had not enjoyed battle for battle’s sake, but only done what he had considered to be his duty? Could this be the one true memory of that life? He shook his head. A weariness had been growing upon him despite the press of duty. He had been feeling it in his bones for many weeks and months. If Gothmara succeeded in her nefarious plans, then the point was moot. If Martok’s forces were victorious, then he would have a choice before him. ...

“But not today,” he muttered, lifting his blade and checking the edge.

“What?” Drex asked.

“Not your concern, boy,” Kahless said. “We need to get back to ...”

A disrupter shot sizzled through the gap, snagging Drex’s shoulder and tumbling him facedown into the snow. Though half-conscious from the impact, the boy began to scream, though whether in pain or anger Kahless did not know.

A figure stalked out from the narrow gap, a Hur’q carrying a large disrupter rifle. Kahless raised his blade and took a tentative step forward, but then he felt a rumble beneath his feet. Damnation, he thought. I’ve been [265] feeling this for the past five minutes, but I’ve been too preoccupied with my ridiculous musings!

Another Hur’q pressed through the gap and then a third. All three of them spotted Kahless simultaneously and lifted their rifles to their shoulders. No escape presented itself. Ridiculously, Kahless found himself thinking, A decision I won’t have to make, then prepared himself to find out whether clones go to Sto-Vo-Kor.

One of the monsters dropped its rifle, its eye pierced by a disrupter bolt. Screaming, it lashed out, spoiling the aim of the other two. Kahless tore his eyes away from his attackers to see Drex propping himself up with one arm, the muzzle of his weapon laid over his knees to hold it steady. “Ha’DIbaH!” he shouted, then fired again, but this shot went wide of the mark by several meters. Trembling with shock, he sagged back to the ground and dropped the weapon, the snow turning magenta with his blood. The bolt didn’t cauterize the wound, Kahless realized. After slinging his blade onto his back, Kahless crouched, grabbed the boy’s uninjured arm, and pulled him up over his shoulders, then turned and trudged as fast as he could in the churned-up snow.

Behind him he heard the beat of drums and beneath his feet the ground began to tremble. Experience on a thousand battlefields told Kahless that countless warriors approached. Having to squeeze through the gap would slow them down, but not for long; the emperor had no idea what he would do when they reached the circular plain.

Running down the narrow valley, the drums and footsteps growing fainter behind him, Kahless suddenly became aware of another pounding beat before him. Could some of them have circled around before me? he [266] wondered, but no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he recognized the source of the thunderous beat.

At the mouth of the valley, he saw a dozen great, shaggy beasts headed toward him and astride them twelve warriors. At the fore rode Martok, his bat’leth held high glittering in the sun, hair streaming behind him, his cloak snapping and rippling. Though Kahless knew a host of demons was behind him, still he had to stop and stare in awe and wonder.

As they swept past him, the clods of snow cast out from behind their mounts’ hooves struck Kahless and Drex in the back. As the thunder of their passage receded, Drex whispered hoarsely, “Put me down. Go fight.”

“I can’t leave you ...”

“If I cannot survive on my own,” he hissed, “I do not deserve to live.” Then, more softly, Drex said, “My father needs you, warrior.” Not “Kahless” or “Emperor,” but “warrior.”

Kahless trudged to the edge of the canyon and deposited Drex in a crack in the rocks. After quickly binding the boy’s shoulder with strips of cloth torn from his cloak, the emperor made sure the forcefield generator still functioned and was turned up to full. Kahless did not like the fact that Drex had no color in his face, but the boy was conscious and appeared lucid. “You’re taking too long.”

“Don’t give orders to the emperor,” Kahless said. “Everyone has been doing that to me lately.”

“Perhaps if you acted more like an emperor,” Drex muttered, “and less like ... like ... the humans have a word for it. Someone who entertains by performing tricks.”

“Priest?” Kahless asked. His knowledge of Federation Standard was good, but his command of idiom was poor.

[267] “No. Not religion. The other kind of trick ... clever sleight of hand.”

Kahless thought about it. This was eating up valuable time, but now he felt like he had to know. He tried to recall some of the human entertainments he had read or seen, but they were usually incomprehensible to him. There had been one old story, though, that he had liked and the characters in it had sung often enough to please him. One character—an old man with white hair who was always a little smarter than everyone else ... What had they called him? “Wizard?” Kahless asked.

Drex’s eyes started to glaze over with pain, but he said, “Something like that. Yes ... Don’t be one of those. Be a warrior now. Father needs warriors.”

“A lot of them, I warrant,” Kahless said, and patted the boy on his good shoulder. “Stay here and I’ll find some.”

And thus, rather than follow Martok and his riders into the gap as he would have preferred, Kahless ran back to the field to gather as many allies as he could with his tricks and sleight of hand. But, as he ran, under his breath, he muttered, “Wizard, eh? Then maybe if this all ends well, I’ll need to do one more trick.”

Riding into battle, Martok felt young. Years fell away with every heartbeat, with every jolt from the saddle up through the base of his spine. He was a man of fifty, no forty, no thirty again. Snow whipping into his face, his blade held high, he laughed for the pure joy of speed and strength and vigor. To his right, Angwar bellowed a war cry. Grim Starn at Martok’s left rose up on his stirrups, held a horn to his lips, and blew a blast so loud and reverberating that it threatened to shake the ice from the canyon walls.

[268] A hundred meters before them, a pack of Hur’q bunched around a narrow crack in the canyon, two trying to squeeze through simultaneously while a pair of Klingon warriors crouching in the snow attempted to set up some kind of mortar cannon. Martok turned to see if Angwar saw it too and, yes, obviously he did. The Katai Master drew his disrupter, a huge antique-looking piece of hardware, was able to take aim on his galloping beast, and fired.

The ground in front of the mortar exploded into the Klingons, throwing them backward, slashing them with splintered ice. A thick sliver of rock calved away from the canyon wall above the crack and tumbled down onto the neck of a Hur’q, practically splitting the creature in half. The other Hur’q turned round and round in bafflement, each of them stunned and unable to see where the attack came from.

“Hah!” Martok shouted above the fray. “One shot! Brilliant!”

Hearing voices, but uncertain about their source, the confused monsters began firing their weapons at random.

“Back!” Angwar shouted even as he set his spurs to his jarq, but Martok, never an experienced rider, fumbled his reins even as he saw the danger before them: the damned idiot Hur’q had his weapon pointed at a case of mortar shells.

The concussion from the explosion threw Martok and his mount ten meters down the canyon even as the ground rose and bucked underneath them and splinters of ice flew like spears. When he could once again determine up from down, Martok was lying half under Sithala, who wildly thrashed the air with his front legs while his back legs feebly twitched.

[269] Angwar, still in his saddle, circled Martok shouting something, but Martok’s ears rang so badly he could not say what for sure. Pointing his disrupter again, he fired a single shot into the yard’s head, killing him. Sithala’s dangerously flailing limbs ceased to move.

Martok dragged himself out from the carcass, took one second to pat its side, and performed a quick inventory to make sure he was intact. So much for feeling thirty again, he thought as aches and pains assailed him. Looking up at Angwar, he shouted, “Nothing broken!” then realized the explosion might not have affected the other man’s hearing.

Angwar gave him an acknowledging wave, then pointed frantically toward the end of the canyon. Staring through the swirling snow and dust and expecting to see nothing more than dead Hur’q and a pile of ice, Martok took first one step backward, then another.

The crack in the wall had been pried open. What had been a mere gap was now a passageway and beyond, indistinct through the haze, Martok saw a glittering sea of bright eyes and shining weapons. A standard-bearer held up a banner emblazoned with the Klingon letter “M,” and Martok knew it was not meant for him except perhaps as another way to beat him to death. Morjod, apparently, had decided now would be a good time to attempt to bring back one of the ancient customs, because Martok heard the sharp rumble of drums against his skin.

Extending his hand, Angwar mouthed the word “Retreat.” Martok mouthed a word in response, but he also held up his hand to be pulled up behind Angwar on his mount. The chancellor of the empire knew he was a proud man and by some accounts a great warrior, but he [270] was not as foolish as his wife often accused him of being. Now would be a good time to leave.

Morjod, standing on the back of one of the armored vehicles, had the best vantage point of anyone in his attack force, but even he had no clear idea what had just occurred. After an explosion, a great deal of falling ice, rumbling ground, and now, suddenly, the crack in the ice wall that had been slowing down his force was gone. True, a score of warriors and a handful of Hur’q who had been waiting to get through the gap were now buried under tons of ice and stone, probably dead, but the loss of so few meant little in the grander plan.

His communicator chirped. Only his mother would be calling him now and he considered ignoring the call, but it was difficult, very difficult to ignore Mother. He held the com to his mouth. “Yes, Mother?”

“The ground rumbled. What are you doing?”

Just like her, he thought, thinking it was my fault. It felt odd to be having such ungracious thoughts about Gothmara, but there they were and there was no denying them. “There was an ex ...” he began, but then changed his mind. “We’re using explosives to clear a way into the canyon.”

A moment of silence, then his mother said, “Good idea.”

“Anything else, Mother?”

“Good hunting.”

Dust and snow settled and Morjod lifted his field glasses to his eyes. Beyond the gap, he caught glimpses of fleeing figures. “Excellent,” he said, grinning, then shouted, “BEAT THE DRUMS AGAIN! FORWARD!”

The mass of warriors and monsters moved as he [271] commanded. Morjod enjoyed watching them march, loved the feel of the drums in his belly. Why did they ever stop using drums? he wondered. Telling your enemy that you’re coming to kill them is the most satisfying thing I can imagine.

“KEEP THE NOSE UP!” Worf shouted at Ezri, who barely spared him a look, let alone a word in response.

Father is venting, Alexander thought.

Pointing at Alexander without looking at him, Worf roared, “ANOTHER SPREAD OF TORPEDOES!” Rotarran had precisely four remaining in her tubes. Alexander doubted that this constituted a “spread,” but there was no sense in bothering the captain with facts that would only aggravate him; Alexander double-checked the firing solutions and popped the tubes.

On the main screen, the smooth, silver-white ball that he had come to know as Boreth resolved into a grayish blue, cracked and scalloped landscape. Flashing indicator lights laid over the image indicated that they were roughly on target. Somewhere down in those icy wastelands were a great many Klingons, and Martok might even be among them. Of course he is among them! Alexander told himself. He had to believe that Martok still lived, otherwise he would collapse beneath a crushing sense of futility.

Before him stood Ezri, unable to sit in the heavy space armor, the sword shining brightly even through the gloom of the bridge’s grease-choked atmosphere. The gauntlet’s chunky fingers made handling the controls nearly impossible. Alexander heard her muttering something about fire and ice as she struggled; he wondered if it was some kind of Trill prayer.

[272] Prayer or not, invoking fire and ice fit the Rotarran’s current situation. The edge of the main viewscreen was tinted a flickering red and Alexander checked the exterior hull temperature. Bad, but not unbearable. Leskit had inserted Rotarran into a perfect approach despite the practically nonexistent sensor data and then gotten them a fair way toward the surface before their pursuers caught up and started firing. Amazingly, Chak’ta and the others did not seem to want to destroy them, but only to discourage them from continuing toward Boreth. As they neared the surface, however, their enemies’ discretion began slipping. The most recent barrage had almost killed Ortakin and so now Ezri had the helm.

“TRANSPORTERS?” Worf hollered.

Alexander checked the status lights and was relieved to see that the carefully marshaled energy was still where he had left it. “Nominal,” he responded, though he wasn’t certain if his father really listened.

The engineers had been instructed to leave it until the last possible second, until the belly shields were just about to give in, but that didn’t seem likely until they broke through to the lower atmosphere and (theoretically) began to slow down and level out. Fortunately, they needed to put minimal energy into the impulse drive. Gravity was their engine. As his old friend and former shipmate Data might have put it, “Isaac Newton is driving now.” Alexander had met up with one of the bridge officers from the old Enterprise-D on DS9 several months ago, who had related the story of the day Deanna Troi and Data had successfully piloted the crippled saucer section onto the surface of Veridian III. “Such language!” the officer had said in response to Data’s now-legendary comment as he had felt gravity’s [273] final, inexorable tug on the seat of his pants. “He just hasn’t been the same since he got that emotion chip!”

Data with emotions: Alexander fervently hoped that he would have a chance to see that before he died.

A tremendous explosion rocked Rotarran, sending Alexander tumbling to the deck. Alarms blared, panels flashed warning lights, and every station on the ship called the bridge asking for advice, instructions, or simple reassurance. Alexander righted himself (Ezri didn’t look like she had moved at all), started to respond to the first call, but then saw the two blinking messages on his status board:

In one minute the ship would be within their damaged transporters’ limited range.

And, more pressing, Chak’ta had shot off their port nacelle, requiring that reserve power be fed into the shields.

All the energy Alexander had set aside for the transporters would be gone in seconds.

Gothmara watched the tiny symbols that represented her son’s forces move through the narrow valley toward the circular plain where Martok’s pitiful band waited. She recognized the place from her explorations, the only unfrozen body of water on Boreth. A geothermal vent at the bottom prevented the lake from freezing solid. When she had been searching the area for other Hur’q, she had also studied the lake bed, hypothesizing that the Hur’q had used the geothermals to power their bases, but had never found any evidence to support that supposition.

While the lake was not a particularly deep body of water—hardly a “bottomless pit”—she wondered what would happen if a large explosion took place at its center. If, against all expectation, Martok’s forces began to [274] win, she might have to crack the ice. She had tried every other way she knew to kill the man; drowning might have to do.

Again, her communicator beeped, but she knew it wasn’t Morjod. She knew his signal intimately. One of the ships in orbit was trying to contact her, but Gothmara did not wish to be bothered. Leaning closer to her sensor board, she absently reached over and switched off the channel. Nothing happening in space right now could be more interesting than what was occurring before her.

Halfway down the canyon, the katai encountered a column of perhaps two hundred running warriors led by Kahless. When they spotted Martok, the troops began cheering, but Martok, seated behind Angwar, silenced them with a chopping motion and pointed them back toward the lake. “Did you take out the guns?” he questioned.

Several of the commanders looked at each other and then one of them spoke up. “I think so, General. Most of them.”

Martok cast his glance heavenward in frustration. Gods of Qo’noS preserve me: Most of them! “Go back and take all of them! Stop acting like a rabble! Be an army!” He pointed his bat’leth at the emperor and shouted, “Kahless, array them in the Columns of Koloth.”

“It shall be done, Chancellor!” Kahless turned to the two warriors beside him and said, “Carry out the chancellor’s orders: Six columns with sixty men each arranged in wedges. Array them around the perimeter where the enemy will enter the field.”

One of the two warriors hesitated. “Three hundred sixty, sire? I don’t know if we have ...”

[275] “Do your best, then,” Kahless said. “And take the guns!”

Kahless rushed up to Angwar and Martok and asked in a low voice, “How many?”

Neither man answered at first, but finally Martok had to say, “We do not know for certain. The way the ground shook, I’d say easily two thousand and perhaps more.”

Kahless looked grim, but was undeterred. “They will fight for you, Martok. You know that.”

“They may die for me, Kahless, and no one will ever know because Gothmara will see to it that there is no empire left.”

“We must prevail,” Angwar said.

“We must move,” Starn shouted over the rising tide of drumbeats. “If we are to do anything at all.”

Angwar nodded and spurred on the jarq. Martok left behind the emperor and the bulk of his column to see what he could do with those remaining on the lake. No doubt I will find my son there, he decided. And perhaps I will discover what happened to Worf.

As they rounded the last corner that led to the lake, Martok thought he saw the body of a man wedged between two rocks, but the jarq moved too fast and he could not see if the warrior was alive or dead. One more unknown warrior if we do not succeed, he thought, then bent his will to the coming battle.

On Rotarran’s smoke-choked bridge, Ezri Dax lifted her helmet and, just before locking it down into the collar, shouted, “WE’RE GOING IN!” She didn’t know why she said it. Anyone still alive on the bridge knew the destination; it just seemed appropriate to announce their forthcoming doom.

[276] On the monitor she saw a circular plain covered with tiny scurrying dots. Some ran to the left, some to the right, and others stood stock-still, no doubt more than a few of them pointing up at the red and smoking point of light headed their way.

Get ready, Martok, she thought. Special delivery coming your way.