The Days of Glory Read online

  “Why should I hand her over to you?” said Stormwind flatly. He was angry that Eagleheart should make any demand upon him at all beyond what was implied by his command of the Beast fleet, but he wanted to find out exactly what it was that Eagleheart wanted before starting a quarrel.

  “She is not a member of the Human army which is involved in the legitimate settlement of an affair of honor. Yet she was clearly seen by several of the Lemurides, and no doubt some of the Ursides as well, to stab and kill a Beast warrior. That is murder, and she must be required to stand trial for it.”

  Stormwind considered for a moment. He glanced over Eagleheart’s shoulder, and saw that quite a crowd was beginning to gather. They were mostly Ursides from the nearby ships, but other passing Beasts had stopped to listen.

  “The girl was not in the battle through any fault of her own. There was no reason whatsoever, from the Human point of view, to expect a foolish and underhanded surprise attack. There were probably several women in the camp. She was trying to defend the man she was with, and probably thought that the Beast warriors were going to kill her as well. I was there—a great deal closer than you or anyone else who saw the affair in the searchlight. She was just a frightened girl involved by your shock tactics in a battle for what she imagined to be her survival. You ordered the attack, if you remember, and it is therefore you and not she who was to blame for her involvement. Her reactions to the fight were only natural. You cannot blame her for defending herself.”

  “Then say so at a fair trial,” said Eagleheart calmly.

  Stormwind looked at Eagleheart’s steady face in puzzlement. “Why do you want a trial?” he asked. “Are you playing some kind of a game? There is no point in a trial. If you want to provide entertainment for your men, sing them a song. I see no reason why I should be involved in your farce, much less the girl. She’s still frightened.”

  Eagleheart laughed then; it was a forced laugh meant more to imply and insult than to denote amusement. It was a mistake—the land of injudicious remark that always elicited a response from Storm wind.

  Stormwind hit the Lemuride in the face.

  Eagleheart almost came forward to return the blow, but he had been caught as he staggered by Mark Chaos, who would not let him go. Robert Hornwing had also been attracted by the crowd, and moved closer in case it was necessary to restrain Stormwind; but the Sabellan had not moved.

  “Please take him away,” said Stormwind to Chaos in a level voice.

  “It’s no use fighting among ourselves,” said Chaos gently, as much to the man he held as to Stormwind. “However,” he continued, “I think that you should listen to what he has to say. His insult was unwarranted, but his argument still stands. The Human girl should be put on trial, if only to clear her name of the charge which has been brought against her. Perhaps you are right, and her actions are quite excusable. In that case, I am confident that nothing will happen to her. But surely it is better to bring this affair out into the open rather than to secrete the girl on your ship, and hit anyone who questions you about her.” “There is no point,” said Stormwind stubbornly. “The charge of murder is ridiculous and childish.”

  “Then they must be shown up as such. If the accusation is as ridiculous as you suggest, then surely it must appear ridiculous when presented to the Beast assembly. You cannot claim that your own opinion is the final authority simply because the girl is aboard your ship.”

  Eagleheart shook himself free of Chaos while he was speaking.

  “Why are you trying to hide the girl?” asked Eagleheart. He had recovered his composure, but there was still an edge to his voice. “She is only a Human from Merion. You never saw her before last night.” This time there was no implication in the words. His tone was perfectly flat and colorless. Even the slight resentment had gone.

  “She is in my ship,” said Stormwind. “Last night I protected her from the battle because I thought she might come to harm. Now I am protecting her from you because I think she might come to harm. It is not her fault that she is here. I am under an obligation.”

  “Her fault is not for you to judge.”

  “It is not for you to judge, either,” snapped Stormwind, unwisely.

  Eagleheart took advantage of the slip smoothly, talking distinctly and confidently now for the benefit of die audience. “Quite so. I stand as her accuser, you as her defender. I seek to demonstrate the justice of the charges, you seek to prove her innocent. Let us have a judge who is impartial. I suggest Mark Chaos, whose wisdom is well known.”

  “Too wise by far for such a simple decision,” said Storm-wind ironically. “He has been arguing your case.”

  “Not at all,” interposed Chaos. “I merely tried to solve the differences of opinion with common sense.”

  “I would prefer Hornwing as judge,” said Stormwind, ignoring Chaos.

  “He is your kinsman,” protested Eagleheart.

  “Chaos is your friend,” countered Stormwind.

  “I hope,” said Chaos sardonically, “that we are all friends. We are all fighting as allies for the honor of the Beast nations against the House of Stars.”

  “I had thought we were fighting for the honor of Daniel Skywolf,” retorted Stormwind.

  Eagleheart quickly seized his opportunity. “Then let Sky-wolf be the judge, since you would deem him to have the primary interest in our case and therefore to be the direct sufferer if any crime was in fact committed.”

  Stormwind was suddenly trapped. Since he had introduced Skywolfs name into the argument, it seemed as though Eagleheart was compromising. In fact, Stormwind suspected, this had been arranged in advance. He glanced round and saw instantly that the watching Beasts were in agreement with the choice of Skywolf as judge and were expecting him to agree.

  “I think that you should concede to our reason and agree to a trial,” said Eagleheart, to prompt a reply.

  Stormwind toyed with the idea of being obstinate. He glanced sideways at Robert Hornwing and at Saul Slaves-dream, who stood close by. Neither showed any sympathy for his continued denial of what seemed to be a fair request.

  So he made the mistake of agreeing to Eagleheart’s demands. It was not really in character to do so, but he acknowledged that he had pledged his support to Skywolfs cause, and submitted himself in some measure to Eagle-heart’s authority. He was trying to do what he thought was right

  CHAOS

  Mark Chaos is not quite the same man as the cynic who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Mark Chaos knows that everything has a price, and that nothing is valuable.

  For him, the universe has always been an uncertain thing, with no landmarks and no absolutes. There is only stimulus and reaction, the current price to pay, and the result to gain thereby. There is never anything to fall back on. Chaos believes in nothing at all. Therefore he is always alone and never secure.

  He wears the mark of the Beast, but although he has all the characteristics of the Beasts, he is strangely unlimited by them. It is probably because he does not even believe in himself. His ancestry is doubtful. He has no clan, he knew his mother only briefly and his father not at all. He has never needed any of those things. They have no value.

  He is short and thickset, powerful without having the capacity for prolonged effort. His face is moon-shaped and oddly innocent. He does not look capable of the total amorality which characterizes him.

  Unlike Eagleheart, he is not a mutant with the carefully programmed chivalry and loyalty distorted by unplanned genes. He knows the rules, and recognizes their purpose, but he does not respect the rules. He does not feel bound by them. They are not erased, but they are modified. He has insight enough to know what the Beasts are, and therefore understand the practicalities of Eagleheart’s plan. But he can use their characteristics and pervert them with an assurance that Eagleheart could never have. Mark Chaos has no reason to be true to himself. He cheats and betrays his own identity.

  In a way he is a genius. He has a stratagem for ev
ery situation. His mind is brilliantly analytical and cleverly creative. But his genius is awkward, forever limited by his lack of reference points. He sees tortuous routes more easily than simple ones. His imagination is too fertile: it is always playing tricks with his own logic. He is overfond of the double bluff, and evading the nonexistent trap. Chaos alone is ineffectual. He needs someone to fit his ideas into a coherent picture—someone who can perceive situations in their entirety.

  Eagleheart is such a man. He and Eagleheart make a flawless team. Chaos’s details and rapid analysis of new directions fit into Eagleheart’s overall plan beautifully. Chaos’s calmness and total lack of any kind of fanaticism act as a brake on Eagleheart’s wilder dynamism. Chaos sees the relationships between the factors that Eagleheart sees, and Eagleheart can build the entire picture using Chaos’s individual relationships.

  The one thing that they share is that they know not what they do. Chaos lives in immediacy, and cannot perceive the nondirectionality of Eagleheart’s ambitions. Chaos has a blind spot beyond the immediate consequences of his actions. He cannot see the future.

  THE TRIAL

  The accusation began with Ralph Eagleheart. The court was held in a wide square of land in the center of the camp, which was situated in a depression, and therefore allowed practically the whole assembly to see what was happening from where they sat on the slopes.

  Daniel Skywolf sat facing the girl, with three defending speakers on one side—Stormwind of Sabella, Hornwing of Ligia, and Slavesdream of Vespa—and three accusers on the other—Eagleheart of Chrysocyon, Chaos of Aquila, and Redmask of Nager. Judson Deathdancer and Cain Rayshade flanked the judge, supposedly to act as advisors.

  Eagleheart strutted back and forth across the small clear area between Skywolf and the girl, his great voice booming out over the silent ranks, the very manner of his speaking giving his words the ring of authority and authenticity. He spoke of rights and responsibilities first of all, accounting for the reasons which the girl had given for her presence in the Human camp, and her excuses for what she had done when her lover was attacked by five Beasts. He was quite clear and definite about what the girl should have done, and did not discuss in any depth the emotions which had led to what she actually did.

  He spoke clearly and logically, planning the structure of his accusation as though it were a tactical campaign. He fought in the court as he would in the arena: carefully, and to kill.

  He began to widen the range of his comments and gradually changed to a new tack. While still ostensibly discussing the crime the girl had committed, he began to speak about crimes against the Beast army, and crimes against the Beast nations. This was the reason he had forced the trial. He was not interested in the girl but he needed a hook on which to hang a new idea which he had to present to the Beasts.

  It was time, he judged, to begin changing the aims of the war. It was time to put the fight on a new level. He had no real doubt that he could convince the Beasts, but he wanted to impress upon them the new ideas. He wanted a demonstration of force and power to lend weight to his arguments. He wanted to kill the girl to make sure that his point got across.

  “This girl,” he said, “is guilty of an offence of greater magnitude than the mere stabbing of a Lemuride. A great number of Lemurides, and other clans fighting by their sides, were killed during the battle, and lie dead on Merion while I speak. I accuse this woman of a crime of greater moment than that. I accuse her of a breach of the code of honor by which the whole galaxy abides. I accuse her of a breach of the highest law of all—the law on which our civilization is founded.

  “She is guilty, not merely of a crime against one Beast, but of a crime against honor, a crime against the whole of the galaxy. She has interfered with an affair of honor between the Beasts and the Humans. Her crime is the equivalent of a duellist who shoots his opponent in the back while the man is taking up his position. This crime cannot go unpunished. The Beast nations must defend the honor of the army which it has put into the field to defend the honor of Skywolf.

  “The warfleet does not represent only Daniel Skywolf. It represents all of the Beast nations who have joined together to put the fleet into the field. This is not merely a crime against one man—it is an affront to the honor of the Beast nations. We cannot allow it to remain unpunished. Otherwise we sacrifice the code of honor by which we fight.”

  The speech did not make such an impact with the Beasts as Eagleheart’s words usually did. It was a simple enough attempt to put one idea across under the guise of another, and by making the Beasts accept one, make them accept the other. But the worth of the speech had yet to be tested. If the girl was not condemned, Eagleheart would have lost ground instead of having gained it.

  Robert Hornwing stood to make the first reply. He did not pace up and down as Eagleheart had done, or gesture theatrically with his fists. He stood still, and his voice was not raised in righteous indignation or mock anger. For that reason, if for no other, his words lacked effect. Too many of the Beasts simply could not hear him clearly.

  He did not speak of crimes, but of fear. He spoke of the plight of a girl trapped in a battle she neither anticipated nor understood. He spoke of the sight of a lover attacked by five Beasts when there was no help near at hand. He explained exactly what the girl had done and why. He asked for justice. He accused no one and defended understanding.

  He completely ignored Eagleheart’s speech and delivered his own. He neglected to destroy the ideas which Eagle-heart had planted. That was his first mistake. His second was in speaking to the judge and not to the Beasts. He made no impression where it really mattered.

  Chaos returned to Eagleheart’s themes, to reiterate and reinforce them. He had not the charismatic power of Eagle-heart, but his cleverness was obvious in Ills every sentence. He constructed a rather dubious argument, but appealed to the vanity of the Beasts and not their reason or understanding. And thev listened to him eagerly.

  He spoke of the mark of the Beast, and displayed his hands to his audience. He told the ranks of the Beast warriors that he was proud of the mark of the Beast, proud of the brotherhood which had brought the wearers of the mark of the Beast together in a just cause against the House of Stars. He made every man listening his friend and his brother, and made every man there feel something of the pride he claimed in the birthmark he carried. He made every man feel that the most important thing in the universe was the honor of the Beasts—the collective honor of every individual of whatever descent, the loyalty which they owed to the mark of the Beast.

  He measured his great ideal against one Human girl. He compared the price of one Human girl against the honor which he had made them feel. Most of the Beasts were proud men already. All of them were willing to respond to the way he had put his arguments. Honor and loyalty were things thev all knew, but none understood.

  Chaos consolidated the foundation laid by Eagleheart’s speech. He almost forgot the girl altogether in his attempt to make the Beasts accept the idea of some sort of racial identity.

  He did not speak with the intensity of Eagleheart, or even with the fluency of Hornwing, but he did reach the heart of every man who listened to him. But he did not manage to condemn the girl. That was still missing from the accuser’s attack.

  It only remained for Stormwind to be reasonable and sincere, and he cou’d have saved her. Redmask was not important. But Stormwind did not. He was not really capable of it. He was too emotional in his makeup to abandon his emotions in a situation like this. He was too ready to interpret the cunning words of Eagleheart and Chaos as an attack on himself. His vanity gave rise to anger. He, too, forgot the girl, and he condemned her by his own failure.

  All that was necessary was sincerity and sympathy, but when he spoke, it was with asperity and antipathy toward Eagleheart He did not defend, he accused. He accused Eagleheart of malice. He accused Chaos of cheap trickery. He tried to devalue the case they had put by simple insult. He accused them of using their accusation as a s
hield, a political device.

  Most of what he said was true—uncomfortably true as far as Eagleheart was concerned. Most of it was quite justified. But his method of attack was badly chosen. His presentation was inept. He tried to tear down what the Beasts believed, not to turn it aside as Eagleheart had done. He denied what the accusers had said, but he offered nothing in its place. He was beaten long before he had finished. His arguments, if possible, served only to harden the impressions Eagleheart had already planted in the minds of the Beasts. By telling the truth badly, he confirmed their belief in the lies.

  He achieved everything Eagleheart had tried to do.

  The vanity of Richard Stormwind spelt death for the girl, and helped the chain of events which was to lead to the fall of the House of Stars. By one mistake, he lost any chance which he had of stopping Eagleheart’s campaign to bring ruin to the galaxy.

  He had no way of knowing what he had done. It was not even his fault, in the final analysis. He failed only because he was incapable of succeeding.

  Redmask spoke briefly, and with no particular force. Victory was already his. Saul Slavesdream could do nothing. He was far out of his depth. He tried to avert to Horn-wing’s theme, but he was confused and could only echo dead words. He could breathe no life into his arguments.

  Daniel Skywolf asked the Beasts whether the girl was guilty, and they answered him.

  Then he invited the girl to speak again.

  DEATH SENTENCE

  She was nothing but a frightened girl. When she had told her story at the beginning of the trial, she had said very little. She had begged a little, but mostly she had told the simple truth.

  But now she had listened to Ralph Eagleheart and Mark Chaos, She had heard the case of a panic-stricken stab in the dark artfully buried beneath an argument deliberately calculated to set the Beasts against the House of Stars. She did not understand it as such, but she saw what Stormwind had ignored: that her accusers were appealing to vanity and not to sanity.