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seen that our best land is now split and cracked 
 Yes. She spoke to Rick in English.  Heavy rains when they didn t expect
them.
Just showing them contour plowing will do a lot to stop the gullies 
 In time to help? Rick asked.  If we ve got this figured right, they ll need
to work their arses off starting next spring.
Drumold stared at them suspiciously.  I like it not when you speak so, he
said.
 Ms apologies, Rick said.  Is there no land not plowed, then?
Tylara laughed.  There s land enough in the Roman Empire. Fields, left as
parks for Caesar. Forests of game for Caesar. Herds for Caesar s gods. There s
food and land there.
 A cruel joke, Drumold said.  There s food and land, aye. And legions to
defend them, and the slavemarket for those who enter the Empire without
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Caesar s leave.
 Do you forget Rick s star weapons? Tylara asked. She turned to Rick.  Your
friends have taken all of Drantos with their weapons. Can we not do the same
with the Empire?
Dammit, I wish she wouldn t look at me that way, Rick thought. I am not a god.
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 I do not think so, he said.  Besides, there have to be better ways than
fighting.
Can t we parley with the current Caesar?
Drumold and Tylara both laughed.  The only way Caesar wants to see any kin of
mine is in chains, Drumold said.  We have little to sell to him save wool.
What we get from Caesar we take with sword and bow.
If Caesar wouldn t parley, there might be another way to get his attention.
 How strong is this Em-pire? Rick asked.
 Bring the maps, Drumold shouted. He waited while a henchman unrolled
parchments.  The Em-pire is no so large as it was in my grandfather s day, he
said.  But they hold the fertile lowlands, and the foothills, here and here.
They keep a legion of four thousand mercenaries in this fortress. He
indicated a point some twenty miles from where the foothills became steep
mountains leading to
Tamaerthon.  Within a ten-day they can have two more, and another ten-day an
additional three.
And we ve got about a hundred rounds for the rifles, Rick thought.  That s
pretty heavy odds, he said carefully.
 The other star men have taken all of Drantos, Tylara said.  Can you not do
as well?
 They needed the armies of Sarakos to do it. And I suspect Sarakos has reason
to regret his bargain. He s not likely to be much more than a puppet for André
Parsons. Serves him right.
Lowlands. In about five years, maybe less, that new Roman Empire was going to
be under water all but the high plateau that held Rome itself. And by that
time the people of Tamaerthon would be starv-ing. Except Mac Clallan Muir and
his family. They wouldn t starve. According to Yanulf, the clan leaders and
their children would in theory, willingly offer themselves as a propitiation
to the gods. It came with the job of leader. In Drumold s grandfather s time,
it had happened after three years of bad harvests, which was how Drumold s
grandfather had got the position of high chief of Tamaerthon.
Damnation, there had to be something he could do. And he wasn t too likely to
talk Tylara out of jumping off that cliff into the sea, either. That was one
girl who was likely to take her duties seriously.
 You have raided the Empire in the past?
 Aye, Drumold said.
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 Tell me more of the Empire. How are the legions armed?
 With lances and swords. How else?
 Lances and swords they re horsemen, then? Drumold seemed surprised.
 Aye. Horses and centaurs. Mostly horses.
 Not foot-soldiers. Rick described a classical Roman legionary: square
shield, pilum, andgladius hispanica.
 There are no such anywhere I know of, Drumold said.  Ken ye any in your
western lands, priest?
 No. Yanulf studied Rick s face.  What makes you think there might be?
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As near as he could figure it, the
Shalnuksis had brought an expeditionary force from Earth in about 200 AD,
about the time of Septimius Severus. That had to be when the ancestors of
these new Romans arrived. Severus still employed classical foot-marching
legionnaires, a bit degenerated from those of Caesar s time, but still the
most effective infantry Earth would see until gunpowder. Evi-dently the same [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]