Conrad's Last Campaign Read Free Page B

in a noose. Apparently a warning to would be thieves.
    “We will not know what the brass tubes are for until we open them and the water powered machine or paddlewheel will require work to understand. They do apparently use battle kites, as the Jin Dynasty did, to carry observers over the battlefield.” I decided not to mention the incongruity of several large tree trunks stacked in a corner of the room.
    The emperor looked pleased, “You did well for only having a few minutes of inspection. Batu, tell them what they missed.”
    An expensively dressed Mongol stepped out of the shadows and gestured to the items in the room. “Unfortunately, these are not the booty of victory. These items were dragged at great expense from a small country west of the Rus’. They are much more powerful than they first appear. With weapons and systems like these an army of farmers destroyed a million Mongol and Chinese warriors. The emperor himself has chosen to demonstrate the weapons.”
    With that, His Imperial Majesty descended the throne and walked over to a heavy table with one of the metal weapons mounted on it. On closer inspection, it looked somewhat like a crossbow stock lacking the crossbow and, strangely, carrying a small lit lamp on the side. The emperor pointed the weapon at the tree trunks and pulled the trigger. It sounded like a grenade going off. Then he pulled a lever back and forth and fired again, and again. Before he stopped, he had splintered several tree trunks in less than a minute.
    Eventually, he turned to us with his hand still resting on the weapon. “If we are not to be conquered by a nation of dirt grubbing farmers, we will need some of these. You will be moved immediately to a new facility about twenty li outside the city. Whatever you need in men and materials are yours for the asking. Use these weapons to strengthen our army or be killed by theirs.”

Be Assured That Never Will I Try to Trick You
    “Damn,” I swore. “I knew that they would attack us eventually, but it sure could have happened at a better time! You are absolutely positive about your information?”
    “I have had three independent reports come in during the last two days. I’m as certain as I can be, your grace.”
    “Holy shit! I’ll see what I can do, but right now, half of our power is in the wrong place! Boris, get your people out of there! Tell them to try to find somewhere safe to hide! That goes for you, too!”
    “I have already told them that, and I am safe enough. Good luck, your grace!”
    “You, too, and keep in touch!”
    I signed off. When I first got to this bloody century, I’d worked for Boris for a while, and I liked the man. A year later, he’d run into bandits on my land. He’d had his bodyguard killed, his fortune stolen, and both of his hands cut off. We’d saved him, and killed all of the bandits, but we had never found where they had hidden his treasure.
    Boris soon married his nurse, a very patient young woman who didn’t mind waiting on him hand and foot; services which he really needed. Without hands, he couldn’t button his clothes, put on his shoes, or go to the toilet without help. But that man could sell sand to an Arab!
    Since he was without his working capital, he couldn’t continue as a merchant. Therefore, he had started to work for me as my commercial representative. He was very successful at this. Eventually, he had agents all over Christendom, profitably distributing our commercial products. Their reports often contained information about various political and military items, as well as commercial news. This function soon expanded into a spy network that had become one of the best in the world. We were selling our products, from hardware, plumbing, and farming equipment on up to and including whole factories, over a huge area now. Our salesmen, many of them, were also our spies.
    Much of our profits supported a free school system that covered all of Europe now, from elementary schools to