Read onlineThe Barbarian
The late Howard Roberts created one of the greatest characters in (so his publishers assure us) science-fantasy in his tales of Cronkheit the Barbarian and the Hybolic Age; I do not understand how the following episode, surely the most revelatory of all the chronicles of Cronkheit, has been so far omitted from the collected canon.
y do you think wars are fought?" he asked bitterly. "War is an extension of diplomacy. It's the final means of making somebody else do what you want. The object is not to kill them all off--how can corpses obey you?"
Cronkheit growled in his throat.
"We would have negotiated a peace in which Chathakh became our ally against Serpens," went on the general. "Then we'd have been safe against all comers. But you -- You've left a howling wilderness which we must garrison with our own troops lest the nomads take it over. Your atrocities have alienated every civilized state. You've left us alone and friendless. You've won this war by losing the next one!"
"And on top of the depression which is coming," said the Empress, "we'll have the cost of maintaining those garrisons. Taxes down and expenditures up--It may break the treasury, and then where are we?"
Cronkheit spat on the floor. "Yuh're all decadent, dat's what yuh are," he snarled, "Be good for yuh if yer empire breaks up. Yuh
