Battle Hymn Read Online Free PDF

momentarily caused him to forget where he was, and he almost extended his hand to Ha'ark but then stopped. The Qar Qarth was looking straight into his eyes.
    "Why?" Hans asked softly.
    "Just curious about you," Ha'ark replied calmly. "You were one of the designers of the defeat of the Merki. I paid well for the trade of you and the other survivors taken in the war against you and the Cartha, nearly five thousand in all."
    Hans spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground.
    "Merki. Dumb bastards."
    "But we're not," Ha'ark said, his voice now edged with a brittle hardness.
    "Why are you even bothering? Hell, where we live is fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand miles away. Can't you let it be?"
    Hans was afraid that his tone had a note of pleading in it. He fell silent and chewed, staring straight at Ha'ark.
    "You're planning to renew the war."
    "When we are ready," Ha'ark replied calmly.
    "To what end?"
    Ha'ark laughed and reined his horse around in front of Hans. "First you defeat the Tugars. Unthinkable: A despised race rises up, in less than two seasons arms itself, goes to war, and defeats nearly twenty umens of a proud Horde. That should have been the alarm. At that moment Bantag and Merki should have forgotten their differences, should have prepared, and should have eradicated you. But the fools left themselves divided. I have studied the campaign the Merki launched. If but ten umens of the Bantag had swept up from the south, between what you call the Inland and the Great Seas, Roum would have been flanked from the south. You could not have held two fronts. You would have been destroyed."
    "But you didn't, and we won."
    Ha'ark nodded. "You wouldn't have if I had been there."
    He held up his rifle.
    "I understand this. I understand where it comes from. I know where you come from. Two, perhaps three generations at most behind my own world. But fifty, a hundred generations ahead of what these savages I now rule could ever dream of. I know the rule of it all, that when a superior culture meets an inferior one, the inferior one is doomed either to adapt or to die. The choice is that simple: Either you will die or we will die."
    Hans stared at Ha'ark. He wanted to tell the bastard to go to hell, but he knew that Andrew would handle it differently, would want him to handle it differently. He took a deep breath.
    "It could have been different. It doesn't have to be that way even now. If you saw a race that slaughtered your own children and devoured them, would you not fight to the death?"
    Ha'ark nodded slowly in agreement. "Of course. Ask me to change them? Impossible."
    "Then it will be war. That abomination we will never accept."
    "Don't you think I know that?"
    "You are Qar Qarth. You can command anything and it shall be so."
    "Not all things. I sit lightly upon the golden throne. Many of the clan Qarths already doubt that I am the Kathul."
    Hans continued to stare at him.
    "A prophecy of the Hordes says that a leader will come through the Tunnel of Light, sent by the Ancestors, to return his people to the stars."
    "And are you this Kathul?"
    Ha'ark smiled and Hans felt distant and alone. He believes it, Hans realized. Now we've got a religious fanatic to deal with.
    "I'm not a fanatic," Ha'ark whispered and Hans averted his eyes, a response that elicited a soft, growling chuckle.
    "What do you want from me?"
    Ha'ark sighed and leaned forward in the saddle. He motioned for the tobacco plug and Hans offered it. It felt so damn strange, a ritual he had practiced with Andrew for years, repeated now—he wondered if Ha'ark did it for just that reason.
    Ha'ark took the plug, bit off a chew, and handed it back.
    "We have a similar leaf on my world. It's called lakh gudak, soldier's weed. More potent than yours, it stills nerves yet keeps you awake for the long night watches."
    "So there's war on your home world?"
    Ha'ark nodded, his gaze distant. "Wars you could little dream of. Constant war, dynastic struggles, war just because