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place of battle.
    That was the true genius of what he was creating, the dragging of a primitive fallen race into the modern age, though compared to the war he had known on the world of his birth, what he was creating here was but one step removed from barbarity. If not for the human slaves, the task would be hopeless, for no rider of the Horde would ever deem to lower himself to the task of labor. Only those of the lowest caste could be compelled to be the guards in the factories or to run the locomotives or work in the engine room of the ships. It would take a generation at least to transform that thinking. The Tugars never understood that, the Merki were just beginning to grasp it even as they went down to defeat. This would have to be different.
    It would be war itself, the very reason for their own existence, that would serve as the catalyst of change. He could promise them that once the Republic was defeated, things could be as they once were, that again they could go with bow and lance on the everlasting ride about the world, harvesting the human slaves who waited to feed them. But he knew the lie of that.
    The Yankees had brought an infection to this world, the disease of knowledge, bow and horse giving way to rifle and locomotive, and once the change was started it would never stop. When this war was done he would indulge them in their ritual of the eastward ride for a while, but the rail lines would follow them, linking back to the factories. Only those humans who were trained to labor would then be kept alive, all others would be put to the sword. For the secret of technology had been unlocked, and nothing could ever change it back again. Even if the Republic was completely shattered, its cities leveled, all its populace put to the sword, still the infection was there and would spread. Some humans would manage to escape, fleeing into the great northern forests, there to labor in secret. If he should ever let down his guard and allow his people to revert, twenty years hence, when they returned, it would be to face a disaster.
    He knew with a grim certainty that this was a racialwar for control of this world, and the only alternative to total victory was annihilation.
    "I still think we should wait," Jurak said, while pensively gazing at the twilight sky.
    "Why?"
    "It won't be until next season that the rail line up to Nippon and on into the forest where their rail line is located is completed. Even then, there's the difference in gauges—we'll have to convert their line as we advance. Well have a logistical nightmare trying to keep our northern army supplied without that rail link. If we wait till spring, we could have another dozen monitors, a hundred landing ships, fifty or more airships, at least another ten umens converted and trained with rifles and modern artillery. Supplies to the north with a completed rail line would be ensured as well."
    "And what of the humans in that time, Jurak? They adapt faster than we do. Their own railhead running down along the western shore is still vulnerable, but it won't be by next spring. They have no airships at the moment, but we can be assured that if we wait till spring, we will see dozens, with wings like ours. Remember it is an old maxim of the master Hunaga, 'If surprise is lost retreat or strike, to do neither is death.' We cannot retreat; therefore, we must strike. As it is, I fear this four-month delay; it gives us but a month, two at most, before the winter storms."
    "So it begins then."
    "It has to. I expect you to be at the front in the north in five days' time. Remember, you are to draw them in. I do not want a breakthrough, for if you do achieve one, they will fall back on their own rail line and retreat faster than you can advance.
    "Bakkth, send airships over their base tomorrow to make sure they have no new airships ready to probe our secrets. Make sure no one flies near our point of attack, we must not let them know of our interest there."
    He gazed