We sang the old songs, and new ones composed in honor of Nedfar and also, I was pleased to note, the alliances that were so new and were to be tested in battle. In the days of Thyllis the Hamalese had tended to the mournful kind of song, at least to the ears of a Vallian. Now we sang songs of greater cheer, and old favorites like “When the Havilthytus Runs Red” were not to be heard. Which was a Good Thing. We sang “When the Fluttrell Flirts His Wing” and “Nine Times She Chose a Ring.” We did not, I may say, in this company sing “Sogandar the Upright and the Sylvie” or “The Maid with the Single Veil.”
We Vallians gave them “The Swifter with the Kink,” which was perhaps not as politic as might have been desired, since Hamal had no seagoing navy to talk of, and Vallia’s galleons were the finest — barring those of the Shanks — afloat, so that we could afford to sing a song poking fun at a swifter, a fast, not very seaworthy Kregan galleass. The evening had grown into an Occasion. We all faced daunting perils in the future and so seized the fleeting opportunity to enjoy ourselves while we could. Delia leaned across to me as we stood by a linen-covered table where the bottles shone and goblets and glasses were filled and refilled. When Delia wishes to show a little style in our self-mocking way, she uses a fan. Now she flicked the fan open to conceal the lower half of her face. Her eyes sparked up explosions in me. Those brown eyes in which I can drown forever... I put down my glass.
Chamberlains appeared and I gave them a look, saying, “We are leaving. No fuss, for the sake of Havil the Green.” They retired, bowing, understanding, perhaps; perhaps understanding only that the ways of the high ones of Vallia were vastly different from those they were used to in Hamal.
So Delia and I left the shindig and I had no feelings of being an old fogey traipsing off to bed before the fun had finished. We had battles and campaigns to fight and then would be the time to sing and dance, hoping we would live through the conflicts. Someone started singing “She Kissed the Mortilhead,” which tells of a princess who ran away from her palace for love of a paktun. Delia smiled as we left. “That, I think,” she said, “will be Seg.”
This evening the guard detail on the suite of apartments given over to our use in the Hammabi el Lamma, the Alshyss Tower, was from 1ESW. They had flown in with Drak. Of the juruk I knew every jurukker, every guardsman in the Guard was a comrade. We were jocular, jurukkers and Delia and I. I went in and closed the door. I shut the door and bolted it. Swords in hand, Delia and I went around the rooms. We were on Kregen and in a magnificent palace, and so this was a sensible precaution.
Then we could shut out the whole damned world altogether.
Mutiny
Mud.
The Land of Shining Mud was — muddy.
Seg picked off splotches of dried mud from his uniform and made a face.
“He’s heading for the higher ground away to the west. I’ve kept the scouts after him. But he still outnumbers us, and—”
“Our fellows will be here in time, Seg.”
“Oh, aye.” Seg looked around the camp, which appeared to be slipping beneath the mud, and his orderly — Yando the Limp — brought him up a stoup of ale which Seg knocked back in a swallow. “Oh, aye,” he said, wiping his mouth. “But if we slip up and Garnath catches us before we’re ready — we’re for the Ice Floes of Sicce, my old dom.”
“We’ve run rings around him so far.”
“H’umph! Well, that’s only because you’re—” He stopped, blew his nose, made a face and then hauled his longbow forward to look critically at it. “Damn weather.”
Nedfar walked across from a campfire, holding a leg of a chicken and gnawing into the meat. “Does the rast still run, kov?”
“Aye, majister. We have him bluffed. He still thinks we outnumber him.”
“I wish our forces would arrive.” Nedfar swallowed. “We can’t go on deceiving Garnath forever. I remember him as a slippery customer, and he has this Havil-forsaken rast the Kataki Strom to advise him, also.”
I said, “I wonder what King Telmont is doing in all this?”
“Playing with his women, most likely. He is a cipher.”
“He’s after your crown,” said Seg.
The days passed as what became known as the Campaign of Mud progressed. We had rushed forces into the southeast only to discover that Telmont’s recruiting drive had proved phenomenally successful. He had imported thousands of mercenaries. He had drummed up levies — who would probably run away the moment the first shafts rose — and although weak in the air, as were we, now possessed a hardened core to his army and a froth of units of dubious value. The hardened core was large and comfortable.
Deb-Lu had advised me that he felt sure Garnath and Strom Rosil the Kataki had laid their hands on Phu-si-Yantong’s treasure and were using it to hire their clouds of paktuns.
We just had to keep the enemy in play until our army came up.
I heard that Telmont had with him two Air Service Kapts I knew, hard professional warriors who commanded armies, Vad Homath and Kov Naghan. Wounded, they were now recovered. They would prove formidable adversaries, and I could wish they had forgone what they considered their loyalty to their country and given that loyalty and their expertise to Nedfar, who was now their emperor and unacknowledged by both of them.
“He has a great crowd of Katakis with him,” said Seg, bending and poking up the fire. “And those damned Jibr-farils have organized themselves into regiments. Not much like Whiptails.”
“The Katakis have stepped forward into the world of late,” said Nedfar. “As slavers they have—” He looked at me, and said, “Had their uses. But no one likes a Whiptail.”
“He has swarth cavalry—”
“Mileon’s thomplods should stink them off.”
“If Erthyr wills it,” said Seg, quite calmly.
Nedfar said, “I do not wish to sound petty or resentful but I find it exceedingly strange that of our few forces here the bulk are Vallians, with Hyrklese and Djangs, and my Hamalese conspicuous by their absence.”
“Oh, come on, Nedfar! Your lads are getting here just as fast as they can!”
“Well, the quicker the better.”
“We’re running rings around Garnath and we’ll continue to do so.” I made no bones about my views. “I will not throw good men away. We attack when we are sure of beating him. Not before.”
So the days passed in the campaign; we marched long hours, camping and marching again, drawing a baffling web about Garnath. There were cavalry confrontations and contests, and occasionally the flyers clashed. The days stretched. The configuration of the country here in the southeast corner of Hamal was of importance to our maneuvers. Everything has a name, of course, but I will not weary you with too detailed a description. The River Os, He of the Commendable Countenance, ran eastward into the sea, dividing into two branches to enclose Ifilion. If there was magic in Ifilion, as was rumored, maybe that was the cause of their independence. To the south of the river, the Dawn Lands stretched and the countries on the line of the river were mostly cowed by memories of the iron legions of Hamal. To the north of Ifilion the land lifted enough so that good grasslands blew under the suns. Every time I thought of that land I thought of Chido, who was the Vad of Eurys there. He knew me only as Hamun ham Farthytu, the Amak of Paline Valley, and he and Rees represented a great deal of comradeship to me in dark days, and formed a void in my present life when I had not seen them again. Well, I would. That I promised myself.
One thing was certain: Vad Garnath would raise no troops in Eurys, for Garnath was a deadly enemy to Rees, Trylon of the Golden Wind, and thence to Chido and to me.
In what I made appear casual conversation I’d discovered that Chido, who had risen to the rank of Chuktar and command out in the west of Hamal, was known to Tyfar, who spoke well of him. “Although Chido ham Thafey retired from the army after — after our defeat. He secluded himself on his estates in Eurys.”
“I knew his father, the old vad,” said Nedfar. “An upright man. I could hope that the new Vad Chido will join me.”
Because we were near Eurys, Chido’s name cropping up was a natural occurrence; we all felt he would have to declare his allegiance soon. I could feel for him, as for so many others. The choice was agonizingly difficult.
By maneuvering and marching and counter marching we held off Garnath’s two major attempts to launch attacks. We trended more to the east, to draw him away from the higher ground in the west. Tyfar looked concerned as we stood in a mud paddy watching the troops march past.
“If we get our backs to He of the Commendable Countenance and our flank to the sea, Jak — and—”
“Garnath will decide he has us trapped, yes.”
“And?”
“Oh, Dray’s got it all worked out, Tyfar,” said Seg.
“I hope it is worked out. We draw Garnath on, as we have been doing, never allowing him to hit us. Every day our army marches closer. When it is in a position to strike, we stop and Garnath lunges, and—”
“And we catch him between two horns!”
“Well, we hope so. It will take cunning deployment.”
“We’ll be the anvil, and the army with those thumping great thomplods will be the sledgehammer.”
“That is the theory. Had we attempted to draw him further to the west, he would never have followed. He must know an army marches. So we must dazzle him at the end, when we strike.”
“Dazzle him? We’ll blind the cramph!”
And then I nearly had a mutiny on my hands — a mutiny, moreover, in the crack regiment, the First Regiment of the Emperor’s Sword Watch. The lads of 1ESW really threatened to cut up rough. Many of them have been introduced into my narrative and, sadly, many had died. New faces replaced the old. Now there was a spot of bother in Vallia — what that spot of bother was will become apparent later on in my narrative — and Drak had to return. I had told 1ESW that they should serve and guard Drak, as the future emperor. Now they threatened mutiny, saying, in effect, “We are your Juruk and we formed ourselves to guard you, much though we love your son Drak.”
I remonstrated with them, drawn up in their ranks outside the tent lines.
They said, “There is a battle coming on. D’you think we will go tamely back and leave you?”
Drak cut that knot by saying he would leave 1ESW. Then he said, “And, father, I shall have to have a bodyguard, I suppose, like Jaidur and most kings and emperors. Yes?”
“Yes. Go and form one and choose good men. I own I shall be glad to have 1ESW back. There is no other unit quite like them.”
“I know!”
Then I gave him the same advice I’d given his brother Jaidur when he’d married Lildra and become King of Hyrklana. “Do not form just one bodyguard. Have at least two and do not appoint a single Captain of the Guard. You are the personal commander over all the units of your Juruk.”
“I will do as you say.”
As we stood to wave the remberees, I said to Drak, sternly, “And accustom yourself to the idea of being the Emperor of Vallia.”
His protests I would not listen to. He flew off. And his face was as black as the cloak of Notor Zan.
By Zair! If I was to go off adventuring over Kregen I wanted the weight of Vallia, at the least, off my mind. I had the shrewd suspicion that I would not be able thus easily to shuffle off being the King of Djanduin. Kytun and Ortyg, I felt sure, would make me see the error of my ways. As for being the Lord of Strombor — well, I was, and would remain so for as long as Zair and Opaz willed. Gloag saw to things for me in Strombor. And — my wild clansmen of Segesthes! Their loyalty could be severed only by death.
Nath Karidge wheeled up, saluting, saying, “Scouts report that Garnath is following us up with forced marches. Two in the last three days.”
“Ha!” I said as we turned away from watching Drak’s voller vanish into the clouds. “So he’s had word from his scouts that our army approaches his rear! Good! Now we’ll play the rast!”
Nath said, “The Kataki Strom has had experience fighting us. We beat him in Vallia. He will know of the Phalanx.”
“He’ll know. But will Garnath listen?”
“I’d have thought all Hamalese would know what a Vallian Phalanx has done to their iron legions.”
“Only in the right circumstances. I look forward to seeing Nath Nazabhan — Nath na Kochwold, of course — and his brumbytes in the phalanxes.”
“They march well. The war ruined the Air Services, more’s the pity—”
“Not so, Nath, not so. For, don’t forget, Hamal had the most powerful Air Service of Havilfar. No, we’re better off marching on our own feet.”
“Better yet riding a zorca.”
“I won’t argue that.”
They were gathering, gathering here in this corner of Hamal, the choicest fighting men of Vallia. And the Djangs were here, as well as not inconsiderable contingents from Hyrklana. Only token forces marched with us from the Dawn Lands. That wild patchwork quilt of a land demanded great labor for the future. And, in all this, we had to make it seem the Hamalese rid themselves of the mercenaries who fought under the banner of a king who sought to make himself emperor, aided by as miserable a bunch of cutthroat tapos as ever remained unhanged.
Our little force maintained good order and discipline, and we had only two cases which ended with the culprits hanged. There were atrocity stories to be gathered from the huddled villages in the mud, stories of what King Telmont’s army had done as they marched through. I thought of Homis Creek, and shook my head, and we did what we could to assist those in trouble.
On the maps the forces drew together as we marched the pins across the colored outlines. Gradually the place where a suitable confrontation might take place became clearer, narrowing down to a relatively mud-free area slightly higher than the rest of the country. It was near the coast, with Eurys to the north, and the river gratifyingly far enough away. Our provisions held out well, and logistics worked wonders. Also, two things operated to assist us here: the army coming down from the north and west carried plentiful supplies, and our flying services brought in fresh food and provender.
There was a well near the place we selected as the site for the battle, known as Plasto’s Well. Some of the men began to talk in terms of the great victory we would win at the Battle of Plasto’s Well.