Paladin of Shadows 4 - Unto the Breach Read online

  There was even a name for the person: Kildar.

  Mike was but the latest in a long string of foreign mercenaries who had arrived, trained the Keldara in the latest innovations in bringing harm to an enemy and then used them to bring that harm.

  That was fine with the Keldara. They just went on. As long as they had their beer, and incredible beer it was, and someone to kill in the name of their Kildar and for the glory of the Father of All, they were happy.

  They were called by the locals, and even the Chechens, The Tigers of the Mountains. Simply saying those words to rural Georgians caused them to make the sign of the evil eye and shy away.

  Mike swung the binoculars around the valley, idly wondering what the world would bring to the Keldara next. Chechens had come and been defeated, the Keldara being then right off their first day on the range. Another mission in Albania had started as a lie and been made truth by their burning spirit. The toxic result resided in the vaults of the caravanserai, a troubling burden he tried his very best to forget.

  He looked down at the homes of the Keldara, low stone buildings with slate roofs and caught sight of a group of Keldara militia sitting outside their barracks, working on weapons and taking in the remaining light of the mild late-fall day. They seemed... happy. Why shouldn't they be? It was a nice day, they had weapons in their hands and, for the moment, nobody was trying to kill them. Of course, they looked even more happy when people were trying to kill them and they were responding in kind.

  Where, he wondered, would the Keldara descend next, following their Kildar aViking to bring fire and axe and ruin?

  * * *

  "I saw it, I tell you."

  Sion Kulcyanov was eighteen, just. Tall and more slender than the "standard" Kulcyanov look he had the Kulcyanov bright blond, nearly white, hair and blue eyes. He was considered probably the most handsome of the Kulcyanov's with a squared chin that had a slight cleft, high Scandinavian cheekbones and eyes with a very slight epicanthic fold. His blue eyes were the most notable feature, though. "Striking" was the term that men usually used. "Piercing" was another. Women outside the Keldara girls normally just sighed.

  Sion did not consider himself particularly handsome. And among the Keldara he really wasn't. Oh, he was better than the average, perhaps the best looking among them. But the Keldara, male and female, were invariably so good looking people had a hard time believing it. He might be the "best" but in his general age group there were at least twenty guys that most women, internationally, would count as a "ten" for looks. And the low end was probably Shota, the great dumb ox, who would count as an "eight" in any normal society. A dumb eight. But an eight nonetheless.

  Sion's eyes might have looked nice but they had other assets. He was possessed of vision that was normally reserved for birds of prey. Far-sight was the term. Where other men had to use binoculars he simply...peered.

  In America with his phenomenal reactions, high intelligence and incredible eyesight he'd have been a shoe-in for fighter pilot training.

  In the Keldara he was spotter for the top team sniper, Lasko Ferani.

  With his relative youth, few of the militiamen were much older but few younger, and his anomalous position, his status wasn't the highest in the militia. Which was why he found the present argument slow going.

  "The tigers have been gone for years," Efim Devlich said, shaking his head. The machine-gunner was somewhat old in the teams at twenty-seven and well regarded. So his argument held more weight. "And there aren't any anywhere around here. So, tell me, Pee-Boy, where did it come from and why hasn't anyone else seen it?"

  Sion had four kidneys, a not unusual, if unrecognized, mutation among the Keldara. It, perhaps, explained why they could drink so much beer without notable effect. That and the fact that they were given weak beer while still nursing. But one result of four kidneys was a tendency to have to urinate more often than normal. Sion had never quite lived down an accident he'd had when he was six.

  "Well," Sion answered, dryly, "it might be because I can see better, yes?"

  The group chuckled and nodded. Just as everyone knew that Sion had peed his pants during Sunday Church when he was six, they also knew his eyesight was phenomenal.

  "Well," Efim said, shrugging, "I'll believe it when I see it. Or hear it. They roar, you know, just like lions. We will know the tigers have returned when we hear their roar. Now, it's time for dinner. I would suggest, though, that you keep this to yourself, Sion. Perhaps, if there was a tiger, he did not want to be seen. Not yet."

  "I will," Sion said, shrugging. "But one day, Efim, you will hear the roar. Then you will know: the tigers have returned."

  * * *

  Mike opened up the side gate of the harem garden and made his way through the dark yard, limping slightly. The path up the mountain was enough of a ballbuster but finding his way down, in the dark, was always tricky. The late summer blooms filled the air with a heady fragrance but he was concentrated on just making it to the back door. There was one spot on the trail that, no matter what he did, he slid. It was tough enough getting up, a slick portion of worn granite at about a sixty degree angle. There were a few finger and toeholds on the way up, but coming down in the dark the best bet was to just slide it. This time he'd done just that, taking his ruck off and letting it follow him down in a barely controlled slide. Fortunately there was a wide wedge of overlaying sandstone at the end of the section of granite and he and the ruck had arrived in one piece. If he'd slipped very far to the right, though, it was a fifty meter fall to the next more or less flat spot.

  Very few of the windows were lit, which made making his way through the garden more a matter of memory than sight. Although the Keldara had ended up pulling more than two dozen girls out of the Balkans slave trade, Mike wasn't about to bring them all back as part of his "harem." They had been brought to the caravanserai, but only temporarily. He'd set the harem manager and Vanner on finding a spot for them and the two of them had tracked down a parochial girl's school in Paraguay of all places that was willing to take them. Mike had also offered the girls currently in the harem the option of going and two of them had left.

  He knew that most of the girls would be getting ready for bed as he walked in the door so he didn't expect to see anyone in the circular "common room" but Anastasia was sitting on the settee, reading a book.

  Anastasia Rakovich, his harem manager, was twenty-six, long-legged, blonde and beautiful with the most perfectly "blue" blue eyes Mike had ever seen. She was, however, "too old" to be in the harem of an Uzbek sheik that had "given" her to him. Mike, suddenly faced with having a harem of girls from the local area, had gone to Uzbekistan looking for someone like her. Well, he'd sought a manager. A young lady that spoke seven languages, trained as an accountant and manager and an extreme sexual masochist had been a bit of a surprise. As had her approach to the harem.

  She had pointed out that the harem was for far more than sex. The girls of the harem were supposed to act as counselors, people on whom Mike could dump the problems and stresses of being, effectively, a feudal lord.

  She admitted that it was going to take her a while to train the girls, but in the meantime she fit the bill perfectly. When Mike had a problem, he had learned to not hesitate talking to her about it. When she had a suggestion, they were generally very good, especially when it was about handling people. And when she didn't even understand what he was talking about, she would still listen carefully and help him to fully "verbalize" the problem. All in all he decided that Anastasia had been one hell of a catch.

  "Good place to read?" Mike asked as he negotiated the door. The rucksack was a standard Keldara combat ruck, Swiss-made with integral bracing, multiple sections and all the rest of the modern bells and whistles. But it wasn't the easiest thing to get through a door.

  "The light is good," Anastasia said, flowing gracefully to her feet and clapping her hands. Petro, the son of the groundsman, came through the far door immediately. "But I was, in fact, waiting for y
ou, Kildar. Petro will take your rucksack. I will have Tinata come up to your room with a light supper after your shower."

  "How long have you been waiting?" Mike asked, helping Petro, who was barely fifteen and overwhelmed by the heavy-ass ruck, to get the mother on his back. The boy's knees barely sank; he was strong for his age. But he would have had a hell of a time getting the hundred and fifty pound ruck off the floor.

  "About five minutes," Anastasia said, smiling. "Not long."

  "I hate to think I'm that predictable," Mike replied, rolling his shoulders. "I'm not a person who should be predictable. People can use that, you know."

  "I think that you are only predictable to those who love you and know you well," the harem manager said, smiling. "And I know you well. Now, go take your shower and by the time you are done Tinata will be ready with supper."

  "Just as a question," Mike said, "why Tinata?" He had to admit that the comfortable and placid Tinata was a good choice. He wasn't really up for complex conversation at the moment. All he wanted was to get something to eat and maybe a quick screw then get some rest.

  "Because she is right for you, now," Anastasia said, shrugging. "I don't question your military decisions or understand them."

  "And I shouldn't question yours, huh?" Mike said, grinning. "Okay, Tinata it is."

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  Mike swung up onto the gelding and settled into the saddle.

  He'd ridden when he was a kid and sort of enjoyed it but until he'd moved to the Valley he'd given it up for over twenty years.

  However, due to the pressure of circumstances, the Rite of Cardane being the circumstances, Mike had decided that learning to ride again was a good idea. Reality was that horses were flighty, smelly, cantankerous creatures. But chicks dug them and the Rite was really about the lady, not the Kildar, in Mike's opinion.

  Since relearning, though, he'd started to ride a good bit. It was a reasonable alternative to driving around in an SUV when he was checking out the farm. He also preferred to use a horse for the Keldara's various ceremonies and festivals. It just...fit better, somehow.

  The Keldara were embracing aspects of the 21st Century with enthusiasm. On the shoulder of the hills to the south was a new brewery that, while archaic looking on the outside, was as advanced as anything to be found in Europe or the United States. Computerized temperature controllers and hydrometers, automated bottling systems, the works. In the bowels of the caravanserai, young ladies who a year before had been hand-weaving cloth for clothing and hand sewing same were using computers to analyze voice intercepts, running satellite communications gear and managing one of the most advanced battlefield networks to be found in the world. And those ladies weren't just punching buttons; they were learning the basic theory behind the systems, how to fix them, how to trouble-shoot, how to repair. Programming and debugging. Cracking and counter-hacking.

  Most of the real "smart-work", Mike had to admit, was done by the women. The men...

  The Keldara men had also embraced aspects of the 21st Century. The team members at least. But the aspects they'd embraced made him want to shake his head. Oh, they were just fine with thermal imagery scopes, vibration trackers and such. But show them a circuit diagram and they tended to scratch their heads.

  On the other hand, put an Xbox controller in their hands...

  But the reality was that in their souls, the Keldara were still very medieval, even barbaric. Give them a generation or two and they might go soft. Might. They'd survived Mongols and Ottomans, Russian Tsars and Communism and still kept their soul. They'd just have to see what the internet was going to do to them.

  For now the seasonal ceremonies remained so true to an ancient core that, somehow, turning up in a Ford Expedition just didn't seem...right.

  On the other hand, there was the matter of dress. Mike had one really...uhm...fancy riding outfit. Fancy was the only way to describe it. But he reserved that for the Rite of Cardane. Otherwise he preferred to dress, an ride, Western.

  Thus he was wearing a pair of jeans, nice ones admittedly, and cowboy boots, okay those were about six hundred bucks, to the festival. Everyone else would be in their "Sunday Go To Meetin'" clothes so he'd be slightly underdressed. But anything was better than that damned riding costume for the Rite.

  He tucked the reins into one hand and gave the gelding his head. He knew he didn't have to kick or otherwise suggest the Braz Curly get going. The gelding liked going down the hill to the small hamlet of the Keldara. The younger girls of the Keldara tended to pamper him to the point where getting him to leave was the hard part. Irana Tsar, or as Mike preferred to call him "Dumbass", was really popular with the younger girls of the Keldara. They all wanted to mount Illyria—the "gray" palfrey that was currently eating hay in the stables—one day and follow Irana up to the caravanserai.

  That damned Rite. Mike wished he'd never heard of it. He really wished he hadn't worked so hard to make it "special." Dumbass was getting fat from being plied with special cakes, apples, sweets and anything else the girls could filch to feed the pig.

  Mike reined in on the road down. The road from the caravanserai was steeper than any similar road would be allowed to be in the US, very nearly a 9% grade. It was easy enough to ascend on a horse, you just leaned forward. Going down, through, was tricky. There was a technique for taking a grade like that fast, one that Mike hoped he never had to try. He could ride, he wasn't a horseman. There's a difference.

  Dumbass, though, had gotten used to the grade and handled it easily. He wanted to trot—cakes and brushing was waiting—but Mike kept him to a walk.

  There were two switchbacks on the drive—each positioned to be swept by fire from the caravanserai—before it reached the main road. The main road was fairly flat through the Valley, winding along the west side past the caravanserai. Going north it passed over the mountains and eventually swept west over some nasty passes to Tbilisi. The drive was kidney-pounding once you left the Valley. Mike had actually driven improvements, all paid out of his own pocket, up to the pass to the north. But that was as far as he was paying for. After that he had to put up with the road. It was horrible but one of these days he was going to get a damned helicopter.

  To the south the road ascended first to the town of Allerso, a pretty small town of about five hundred souls, then further up to a pass that led to the southern plains of Georgia. Tbilisi was accessible in that direction, as well, but a bit further. And the roads were no better.

  Not far south from where the drive met the road was the downslope to the homes of the Keldara.

  The latter were on a slight terrace on the south side of the valley, not far from Allerso in direct line and at about the same level as the main road. However, Mike had to first descend to the Valley floor then back up to get there.

  The drive from the road to the houses was graveled, but well maintained. It was far better than any of the roads in the mountains outside of Mike's control. The Keldara had their own gravel pits and ensured that all of the gravel roads in the Valley were maintained in top order.

  Mike had considered paving some of them but it didn't seem worth the bother. Since he'd brought in heavy equipment, the Keldara's work-load had dropped so much that maintaining the roads was good "busy work" for the older men and the team members when they weren't on deployment cycle. Pretty much every day one of the Keldara men would be out grading them or a group would be laying down new gravel. It was ritual at this point.

  The Valley had one "major" river, about fifty feet across at its broadest, and five or six, depending on how you counted, streams that joined the "river."

  One of those streams had been damned, by a former SF engineer Mike brought in, and now provided hydroelectric power to the Keldara and the caravanserai.

  During spring they could flood rather badly which was why the road, and the houses, were somewhat elevated. The river was glacier fed and the streams in spring would bulge with melt-water. That was
good and bad. Flooding bogged the Valley for a few weeks every year, requiring replacement of bridges that got swept away and general fixing of the fields. But the floods also brought silt, rich with nutrients, the reason that the Valley was so fertile.

  Hell, the way the weather looked they might flood tonight. The sky was overcast and strong winds, at times low gale force, were ripping through the region. The forecast, though, said that rain would hold off until about midnight, by which time most of the Keldara would be under cover.

  When he hit the road, Dumbass started to shake his head. He wanted to go.

  Mike gave him his head and the gelding broke into a canter almost directly out of the run. Mike was fine with cantering, it was a pretty smooth gait, but he drew the line when the horse tried to gallop. Galloping was for horsemen.

  Many of the Keldara were already gathering in the broad, flat, area in front of the houses. Mike was pretty sure that the original reason for the higher ground there was a palisaded camp. There were even traces of a defensive ditch in front of the terrace. The open area would have been a marshalling area.