LE5739 - Falcon Rising, page 5
As the uproar subsided, Loremaster Pershaw spoke. His tone was formal, but the sound was almost disembodied, his voice emanating from some sort of replacement apparatus within his throat. Pershaw asked if Khan Zalman wished to yield the floor to any of the Khans now clamoring for attention.
Perigard yielded and Marthe sat quietly and listened as one Khan after another expressed either distaste for Marthe's coddling of freeborns or supported her efforts to strengthen the Jade Falcons through any means, orthodox or unorthodox. The only Khan to remain silent was Vlad Ward of the Wolves. Marthe was not sure why he was sitting this one out, then realized he probably felt equally vulnerable on this issue. Many years ago, an Inner Sphere bondsman named Phelan Kell actually succeeded in earning a bloodname in spite of being a freeborn. Not only had the bondsman become Phelan Ward, but also Khan of Clan Wolf.
Now Phelan Ward had returned to the Inner Sphere, a traitor in Clan eyes for breaking up the Wolves and taking so many with him that it nearly destroyed the Clan. It had taken much strategy and brokering of power for Vlad Ward to reinstate Clan Wolf. He could not afford to be attacked for seeming to favor Diana's bid for a bloodname, yet he had also established himself in Marthe's political life, as her quondam ally, and in her personal life, as her lover. They did not couple often—only, Marthe suspected, when the contact was somehow politically useful to Vlad. She did not mind the infrequency, and even enjoyed trying to figure out just what political motive her occasional lover was pursuing beneath his desire to couple.
Yes, it is probably a good thing that Vlad keeps his trap shut. With a friend like him, as the old Terran saying goes, I do not need enemies. I have too many enemies as it is. But whoever said the job of Khan was easy?
The heated discussion of the Khans became so chaotic that Osis gestured to Pershaw to put an end to it, which the freakish-looking Loremaster did with a wide sweep of his mechanical hand. A whispered exchange took place between Pershaw and Osis. Pershaw looked up at Marthe and said loudly in that odd, staticky electronic voice, "Does the esteemed Khan of the Jade Falcons wish to speak?"
Marthe nodded and stood. "Annihilate them, my Khan," Samantha whispered.
"I have indeed approved MechWarrior Diana's pursuit of a bloodname," she said. "She was duly sponsored by a Star Colonel of House Pryde. I heard the arguments and decided in favor of the seeker."
That, of course, was not entirely true. Marthe herself had arranged for Ravill Pryde to sponsor Diana. He had protested, but a Khan could be most convincing when necessary. Diana had been persistent in asserting her right to seek a bloodname and she had argued well for it. She was, after all, the daughter of the revered Aidan Pryde, whose name Perigard Zalman had so skillfully invoked.
On Coventry, Marthe had deployed warriors fresh out of sibkos who had yet to fight their Trials. It was not the way of the Clans, but Marthe knew only that she must rebuild the Falcons to keep them from being Absorbed. Once she had broken one rule, what was to stop her from breaking others? She knew as well as anyone that freeborns did not compete for bloodnames, but this warrior was not just any freeborn. She was skilled and experienced, and she was in a direct genetic line with Aidan Pryde. Once Marthe began to consider the possibility that Diana's claim might have some merit, she had decided the experiment was worth it. Succeed or fail, a warrior with a claim like Diana's was not likely to come along again soon anyway.
Back on Coventry, Marthe had finally given in to Diana's incessant pleas. She had even strong-armed Ravill Pryde into sponsoring her. Having gone that far, she was not about to back down now, not even to a Grand Council of Khans.
Anyway, for all Diana's ability, I do not believe she can succeed. She looks like Aidan Pryde and anyone can see she's got a good dose of him in her, but I do not think I could ever believe that a mere freeborn could win a bloodname within the Jade Falcons. When she fails, this furor will be over. And, in the unlikely event she succeeds, then I will have made a point. No one will dictate what I will or will not do to rebuild the Jade Falcons, even if it means departing from the way of the Clans.
"As Khan of the Jade Falcons, I have the right to make policy for my own Clan. In wartime especially, many decisions are dictated by the demands of the moment, and this is one of them. I am fully accountable for it. I regret that some of my fellow Khans disapprove, but the way of the Clans has always permitted each one to govern itself. I praise the outspokenness of all of you, but the jade falcon soars alone. It lives by its wits as well as its fearlessness, and none may command where the falcon will fly, or when, or where, or how. And so it must be among the Jade Falcons.
"Thus do I stand by my decision to allow this kin of Aidan Pryde to compete for a bloodname. It is well known that some Clans do not permit freeborns into their warrior ranks, but the Jade Falcons do recognize the value of freeborns strategically placed within combat units. We have even had freeborn heroes. The value of freeborn warriors has been proven, especially in the Inner Sphere invasion. I will say no more. The bloodname competitions proceed apace on the planet Ironhold. I invite you all to travel there and perhaps you will see what you wish, a freeborn humiliated. Then again, perhaps not. I thank you, Loremaster, for the opportunity to address the Council."
Marthe sat down and waited for the next round of protests. There was some muttering, had been all during her speech, but at a sign from the ebon-skinned Osis, relayed by the Loremaster, the debate was, for the moment, closed. When Pershaw announced that there would be no further discussion, Perigard Zalman went into a hasty and heated conversation with his saKhan, the impressive and broad-shouldered Brett Andrews. Andrews seemed to be urging Zalman to continue, but Zalman shook his head. The ilKhan clearly meant to block any further interruptions by the Steel Viper Khan, and Zalman was silenced for now. Marthe was amused by the failure of his little game.
"There are other matters before the Council," the Lore-master said. "Most specifically, the Harvest Trials and decisions affecting our final readiness to resume the invasion of the Inner Sphere."
During the ensuing discussion, as Samantha fretted in boredom beside her, Marthe rather enjoyed the display of data scrolling across the computer screen of her desk. It showed, among other things, how dismally the Steel Vipers had done in the Harvest Wars.
6
Falcon Caverns, near village of Falconpit
Ironhold
Kerensky Cluster, Clan Space
28 January 3060
Diana had known that, inside the famous cavern, it would be cold, but she was not prepared for the intensity of it. She felt the cold, it seemed, down to her bones. She imagined herself turning into an ice statue and being chipped into pieces by curious tourists.
Falcon Caverns was that rare phenomenon of Jade Falcon society—a tourist attraction. Not that it attracted crowds of tourists. She and Joanna had seen only a few others in their travels through the long, dark tunnels, the way lit by torches placed just far enough apart to keep the traveler from being plunged into total darkness. Diana often felt uncharacteristically delicate as she watched her step across the uneven surfaces of the tunnel floors, strewn as they were with loose rocks and sudden shallow depressions.
"So this is your idea of a break from training," Star Commander Joanna said from behind Diana. She had been silent for a long while, unusual for her, as they trudged through the tunnels, following the signs underneath the torches directing them to the central cavern, the famous Firefalcon Cavern. Firefalcon was not the only large cavern in this massive, networked cave system, but it was said to be the most dramatic. It had taken hours to convince Joanna, who cared little about natural wonders, to accompany Diana here.
"They should have given us our own torches."
"It was in the brochure. Light has to be carefully regulated for preservation of the site."
Joanna grunted. "That is just pap for freeborns. True-borns need no such regulations."
"You forget that I am freeborn."
For a moment Joanna stopped walking and glared at Diana. "I never forget that, whelp!"
Diana chose not to respond. One could easily get entangled in fruitless haggling with Joanna over trueborn/freeborn matters. She could, in fact, be incredibly stupid, Diana thought. On the other hand, there were few trueborn warriors who, while complaining vehemently about free-births, actually maintained close associations with them, as Joanna did with both Diana and Horse. In fact, Joanna was rarely seen with trueborns. Her advanced age apparently made warriors shun her. She decided to change the subject, or at least return to the previous one.
"Are you not impressed, then, with Ironhold's famous natural wonder?" Diana asked.
"Frankly, no. It is just a lot of darkness, dampness, and confinement. I like open spaces, fresh air, light."
"Light? With you and your dark moods?"
"Outside I can yell. Here I am afraid of rocks being dislodged at the slightest sound."
"Your anger could dislodge rocks, I agree."
"Is that sarcasm?"
"I would not know a sarcasm if I said one."
Joanna grunted. She did not want to tell Diana the truth, that this place or any enclosure reminded her too much of that pass back on Twycross. In her first time in the pass, she had been a participant in the Falcon Guards' greatest and most shameful defeat, and she and her 'Mech had been buried under tons of rock. She still had nightmares of being trapped in her cockpit and digging her way out. Her second time in the pass she had fought and defeated the famous Wolf Clan warrior, Natasha Kerensky, known throughout the Clans as the Black Widow.
The victory had won Joanna a place in Jade Falcon historic annals, but all she could remember was the time she was down, again seemingly trapped in a 'Mech cockpit, about to be the victim of the Black Widow. Even though she had fought back successfully from her prone position, incinerating the Black Widow in her cockpit, she still had vivid memories of lying in her 'Mech on the ground in that narrow pass, with its canyon walls reaching upward on either side of her. For her, trapped feelings accompanied any foray through a geologic phenomenon, and she could do without them. As she strode through the dark tunnels, she felt back in one of the nightmares, even though these walls were not high and this was not Twycross and she was not facing anyone in a BattleMech.
"Look at this," Diana said as they rounded a curve in the tunnel and were faced with a sudden brightness, illuminated by several wall torches. "Takes your breath away, quiaff?"
Joanna did not reply. She was struggling not to be impressed by the complex and colorful arrangement of dripstone, deposits left behind by the water that had eroded out this tunnel and, for that matter, the rest of the entire Falcon Caverns complex. The light caught the variegated dripstone surfaces and, in its flickering dance, formed more abstract patterns than what were already provided by the geologic erosion. The separate dripstone formations were themselves of varied shapes and thicknesses. The whole effect was something like ice on the side of a cliff, except that the ice, eroded by the sun's rays, changed constantly and here the dripstone was a permanent feature, left eons ago for all the latter-day Falcon Caverns tourists to stop at and be impressed by, just as Diana and (reluctantly) Joanna were at this moment.
"Imagine," Diana commented, "this formation has been here since long before our ancestors came to Clan space from the Inner Sphere. I mean, long before, in geologic time. Centuries, millennia. . ."
"And it has stayed right here for all that time. All that time. I think I prefer our short lives and our combats and.. ."
"And you complain about them on a daily basis."
"Sarcastic stravag. Let us get on with this little excursion. I am anxious to get back to training and working you until your body is scarred with its own erosion."
Following signs, they made their way to Falconfire Cavern. At first, as they stepped out of the dark tunnel, the flickering firelight and immensity of the cavern itself distorted their vision. Torches were placed at distant points along the impossibly high walls that stretched toward a ceiling that could be discerned only as an immense shadow hanging over the scene. The light itself danced off the varied and sometimes impressive formations, creating a massive, abstract creation in which all kinds of sights could be briefly glimpsed, depending on the notions of the observer. The sight could be a nightmare or a beatific vision or a remembrance of a nearly forgotten ancestor.
The floor of the cavern was crowded with people wandering along the precisely marked paths going toward the enormous pool at the center. Diana had read the brochure and knew that the pool was named Styx, named apparently after a river rather than a lake. The brochure had said the pool was more oil than water, an odd, useless type of oil found only on Ironhold. It was not useful as a fuel source or a lubricant, but it had one peculiar property. It sent up occasional geyserlike shoots of flame, apparently set off by some internal fire or from some intense heat deeper underground. Some scientists had studied the phenomenon, but nobody had been able to come up with anything more than theory. Nobody wanted to investigate further and, besides, the substance itself had no practical use for domestic or wartime functions. With no reason to find out more about the mystery, even scientists could cheerfully leave it as an unexplained phenomenon.
Strangely, with all the fire, in the pool and on the walls, there was no heat in the cavern. It was even chillier than the tunnels, and the two warriors could feel a wafting, frigid breeze on their skin.
"Let us get moving," Joanna muttered. "The sooner we get away from here and back to warmth, the happier I will be."
"What about all that cold-weather combat you talk about?"
"There is a difference between experiencing cold during a battle inside a cockpit and walking through caves. I do not remember my feet ever turning to ice inside a 'Mech cockpit."
Diana smiled and walked to one of the paths. There was no reason to deal further with Joanna and her complaints. Joanna, she had long ago decided, got her kicks from being angry and complaining loudly. Why destroy her happiness?
"Lot more people here," Diana noted, as they set foot on the path. The surface beneath their feet was harder than she expected, perhaps a smoothness caused by generations of tourists to the cavern. "I guess this is more of a tourist attraction than I had believed a moment ago."
"Your life is a tourist attraction, Diana."
Every once in a while Joanna said something puzzling like that. Often Diana did not bother to question her, but this remark was too provocative.
"Tourist attraction? What do you mean?"
"Maybe circus is more the word. Or spectacle. I have never seen bloodname competitions like these. Maybe it is the result of having to run so many so close together."
Diana knew what she meant. So many bloodnamed warriors had been lost in the invasion of the Inner Sphere that there were many bloodnames now available. The depleted strength of Clan military units during this truce period demanded that more positions be filled with bloodnamed warriors.
"Yes, circus," Joanna went on, "especially with all the sideshow attractions. There were always some marketplaces set up during the bloodname contests, and occasionally there would be shows based on Clan history—and some of them good spectacles, too. But this time it seems like half the damned freeborns on the planet have come to Ironhold City to profit from the contests. I mean, Diana, I see more greed and profiteering than valor and skill. Sometimes the bloodname contests seem more the sideshow and the sideshows are the main attraction. And then there is you.. ."
"Me? What are you saying?"
"You are one of the main attractions. A freeborn actually competing for a bloodname. You are one of the sideshow freaks. Something unnatural, deformed by nature—"
"I thought you were in support of my participation in the contest, Joanna. Back on Coventry you—"
"Stop. I am in support of you. But not because you are a freeborn, but because the Khan has accepted your claim to be genetically valid as the daughter of Aidan Pryde. I do not like that you are not trueborn, but I know you as a warrior and you have proven yourself worthy in that. I do not even know my own reasons. But, in a world where I should be solahma and continue as a warrior despite that, the daughter of Aidan Pryde may go for a bloodname. Do not expect me to explain more. If I understood my reasons, I would state them."
This was the first time Joanna had spoken on this subject since they took the DropShip away from Coventry. In all the time on Ironhold, most of her conversation had been devoted to matters of training and physical conditioning. Oh, she would display her general anger at everything with predictable regularity, but she had stayed off the subject of Diana's eligibility for some time.
"Well, I may be a tourist attraction now, but I will show them later," Diana said.
"You had better. I think Marthe Pryde may have given her enemies ammunition by approving your claim. Any misstep and—"
"Yes, yes, Joanna. I know all that. I think about it every day. It is with me when I go to sleep at night."
They walked on in silence. Eventually, they came to a cordoned-off area overlooking the fiery pool. On stands small plaques told the story of the caverns. Diana read them, Joanna did not. Most of the plaques, Diana found out, merely restated what she had already read in the brochure.
Still, Diana found that looking at the pool close up like this was impressive. She jumped, along with most of the other tourists, when a tall burst of flame shot upward quite near the pool's shore. This pillar of flame was followed quickly by another. One of the tourists, a short, overweight man with stubby legs, was apparently too startled by the sudden apparition, and he fell backward against Joanna. Joanna also stumbled back as the chubby man fell to the ground. She nearly regained her balance, but one of the stands tripped her up and she fell, too.
Diana struggled not to laugh as Joanna sprawled out helplessly on the ground for a brief moment. She recovered quickly and sprang to her feet, looking around to see how many people had seen her clumsy pratfall.
