Standing in the center of the great revolving swastika, the epicenter of the nationwide eruption of racial will, his body thrumming to the heady thunder of fourteen thousand marching feet, Feric felt a total fusion with his people, as if every Helder now pouring into the streets throughout the land were an extension of his flesh, his being.
And from a hundred thousand throats in the stadium, from millions of new Swastika fanatics choking every public square in the nation, the reply came in one great racial voice from amidst groves and forests of outstretched arms, the racial will itself speaking in a transcendent bellow that shook the very land with its thunder: "HAIL
JAGGAR! HAIL JAGGAR! HAIL JAGGAR!"
8
From the outset, the legalistic result of the election was a foregone conclusion. Since Feric was the sole candidate of the Swastika while the other parties ran full slates of 109
nine candidates for the nine Council seats which were filled at large nationwide, his election to the Council was assured.
What was also assured was that he would be the only Swastika Councillor on a Council that would probably be dominated once more by the Libertarians, a result Feric considered altogether desirable. Far better to be a lone hero opposing a gang of traitors and poltroons than the leader of a minority political party!
Since the legalistic result of the election was not in question, the campaign could be used to further more absolute goals: to demonstrate the ruthless and forceful fanaticism with which the Sons of the Swastika pursued their sacred ends, and to show that the racial will spoke through Feric by assuring that he got more total votes than any other Councillor. Fortunately, these two election goals were entirely compatible; they could be pursued with undivided attention and total concentration of force.
Thus, three days before the election itself, Feric stood erect in the rear of his open command car, resplendent in his black leather uniform and scarlet cape, and holding the Steel Commander in his hand for all to see, ready to lead his men into the climactic battle of the election campaign.
Crouching before him in the car also in the black leather of the Party elite were Bors Render and Ludolf Best, armed with spanking new submachine guns.
The force that Feric led through the streets of Heldhime toward Oak Park was of necessity the largest and finest troop that the Sons of the Swastika had yet fielded, for Feric had deliberately challenged the Universalist filth to do their worst by grandly announcing that the final election rally of the Sons of the Swastika would be held in this grimy park located smack in the center of Borburg, a malodorous district notorious for being the largest and foulest nest of Doms and their Universalist lackeys in all Heldon. If the Universalists allowed such a rally to be staged without destroying it by force, they would be totally discredited as a serious contender for power, not only in Heldhime, but throughout the High Republic, since Peric had chosen to expend his final hour of public television time on coverage of this rally.
For his part, Feric knew that the Sons of the Swastika must maintain the safety and integrity of their rally in these utterly hostile surroundings, or suffer similar ignomi-ny. Feric had therefore assembled a force fully capable of dealing with any eventuality. In front of his command car 110
was a roadsteamer fitted out with a great iron plow; behind this shield lay three SS machine gunners, and inside the roadsteamer was a shock troop of the finest SS purebreds armed with truncheons and submachine guns.
Immediately surrounding Feric's car was a squad of SS
fanatics in snug black leather mounted on gleaming black motorcycles embellished with the shiniest of chrome brightwork. Behind Feric's car marched five thousand Knights of the Swastika carrying truncheons, torches. Swastika flags, and lengths of heavy chain. To the rear of this foot troop were two thousand motorized Knights, and as rear guard five hundred fanatic SS on foot armed with submachine guns and truncheons.
Throughout the campaign, both the SS and the Knights had acquitted themselves nobly. The hecklers who plagued every Swastika rally no sooner opened their mouths than their heads were split open by SS truncheons; the Knights ranged far and wide, to the point where no Universalist or bourgeois orator could open his mouth in front of ten people at a time without making himself the hapless target of their iron fists. Three times the Universalists had attempted to hold giant rallies, and three times motorized storm troops had sent the vermin scattering.
Now, however, the Universalists and the Doms could be expected to do their very worst. As Feric's car followed the armed roadsteamer down Torm Avenue, an ordure-strewn ditch surrounded on either side by reeking tenement slums, Feric gripped the handle of the Great Truncheon tightly, ready and eager for action.
