Just how decisions reached in conference that should have been secret had circulated among the troops presented a problem I refused to worry about; this little force of picked men were to be trusted to fight and to know when to keep silent. Or so I believed, and by this time any newcomer spy would have stuck out like a neemu among a pack of werstings.
Among the forces arrayed against us was, I discovered, Horgil Hunderd, Trylon of Deep Valley, who, having lost his first three regiments of paktuns had raised three more. We promised ourselves that that unpleasant character would lose the new three.
Toward the end of that month of the Maiden with the Many Smiles we were plagued with thunderstorms. The rain fell down solidly. The very mud itself danced.
In this filthy weather we were reluctant to send the Djang aerial cavalry off on patrol. Our small force of vollers, many of them converted civil craft, performed well. The Suns of Scorpio remained veiled in heavy cloud. And it was wet.
Also, the flying sailing ships, Hamalian famblehoys and Vallian vorlcas alike, were grounded.
For a time we had to pull in our belts. When the weather cleared and the suns shone and the land steamed, the first reports indicated that Garnath had proved a clever and capable commander. During the worst of the weather he had marched his army around us to reach northward, away from the river, and so slip out from between the jaws of our two forces.
“The rast is a cramph and a kleesh,” said Seg. “But you have to admire that little maneuver.”
“We will still have him, Seg. If you look at the map — here — you will see how Chido’s estates extend like a funnel into these low hills. And the sea is there. Garnath will be heavily slowed down if he crosses into Chido’s land.”
Seg looked at me. He had never met Chido. “You talk as though — as though you know this Vad of Eurys.”
I had to ignore the offered opening and so went on to talk of our plans and the way we would turn Garnath’s own cunning and expertise to our own advantage. We followed up and a few supplies came in. Feeding an army and bringing up enough provender for the animals are the keys to success in campaigns. The land over which Garnath marched lay stripped and barren, desolate, after he had passed. We found piles of bones, mostly vosk together with the notorious vosk skulls, for the folk hereabouts produced a variety of vosk which provided succulent sweet meat of first-class quality. As the swods said, it was all the damn mud.
Very few people did not like crisp vosk rashers, or a prime side of vosk cooked in the Kregan way. Our own rations were on the frugal side and included vast amounts of mergem, that all-purpose nourishment, and capital though mergem is and invaluable to a quartermaster supplying an army on campaign, mergem is still mergem, and prime vosk is a world apart. We had plentiful supplies of palines, though, so that kept the swods happy.
The promised Battle of Plasto’s Well would now not take place.
We maneuvered and marched and, one day when the earth showed more green growing things than sheets of shining mud, we gathered for an O group around Nedfar’s tent. Our Kapts and Chuktars attended. Infantry, cavalry, artillery and air, we stood in all manner of gorgeous uniforms — mostly tattered now and many faded and bedraggled — and listened as Nedfar expounded the final plan. For, on the morrow, we had Garnath. On the morrow, in that finger of Chido’s land between the hills, we would crunch Garnath and his army between our two forces. It was now inevitable and, I guessed, in the enemy camp they would see the inevitableness of it, and gird themselves for the fray.
“Tomorrow we shall smash Vad Garnath and his puppet, King Telmont,” said Nedfar. “Through the guidance afforded us from Havil and Opaz, and also our Vallian and Djang and Hyrklese allies, Hamal will on the morrow once more lift up her head in pride. For we shall eradicate the blot upon our honor.”
There was more.
It all boiled down to the simple and gratifying fact; on the morrow Garnath would get his come-uppance.
On the morrow, then, our army marched out toward battle. Trapped in the finger of land, Garnath drew his forces up ready to face us, and drew up more to face to his rear where our other army, arrived and rested, deployed. This was going to be a day remembered in the annals of Hamal, and sung and storied until the Ice Floes of Sicce melted.
In our Earth’s Renaissance period when a mercenary army was trapped like Garnath’s army, they often would not bother to fight. The outcome was certain. The chiefs would gather and talk terms. It was civilized. Maybe. Maybe nations in arms and the citizen levy, in changing all that, changed man’s outlook on war for the good, despite the horrors it brought in train.
Once again the Kapts and the Chuktars gathered around Nedfar for a few final words before we took up our positions with our forces. For battle, the uniforms that had been carefully preserved were brought out and donned, so that the fighting men blazed with gold, bullion and lace, sparkled with silver, and the colors patterned the field with fire. Very splendid they all looked. As for myself, I had elected to wear the brave old scarlet, with a sensible amount of armor, and I’d hung the essential armory of a Kregan warrior about me. No man relishes the idea of having his sword snap in the heat of battle — and not another instantly ready to hand. Our forces stood forth arrayed beneath their banners.
[5]
A voller flew in fast and low and she was not one of ours. I was not concerned that any last-minute attempt at assassination could succeed. Long before the voller reached shooting distance she was surrounded by flutduins bearing Djangs of exceeding toughness and escorted to earth. Very shortly thereafter the guards brought the occupants of the airboat in for our inspection.
The sweet scent of blossoms drifted in the air, most refreshing after the eternal stink of mud. The sky smiled with air and suns shine. And we stood in a glittering group of power and magnificence, with our army ranked ready for battle.
The guards marched up in two ranks, spears all slanted, and wheeled out flanking the newcomers. These two stood, staring at us and then at Nedfar, conspicuous in the center. These two stood hardly, firmly, not showing defiance but proudly as men in their own right, and, too, quite clearly men in the devil of a hurry. Some measure of their quality must be gained in that they had persuaded the guard to let them in and to see the emperor in these finals moments before we attacked.
“I recognize you as Prince Nedfar, now the emperor,” said Rees, his glorious golden lion-man’s face intense with his purpose. “We give you the Lahal. There is a matter of the utmost importance—”
“Gently,” said Nedfar. “You presume—”
“There’s no time to be gentle,” said Chido, dear chinless Chido, now clad as a soldier, looking hardened and mature. But he still could not pronounce his R’s and they all came out as W’s. “The Twylon Wees and I must tell you—”
“You are the Vad of Eurys,” said Tyfar. “You have come to fight at our side? To swear allegiance to the emperor?”
“Listen, you fambly!” bellowed Rees in his old numim roar.
“The Shanks! There’s a whole damn army of the rasts landed on the coast and murdering and pillaging their way inland. This is no raid! They’ve invaded. And they’re here to stay — unless we stop them right now!”
“We must all wally wound!”
Down in the fingerlike valley the dark masses of Garnath’s troops sparkled with light as the suns struck sword and spear, reflected back from helmet and cuirass. In only a few murs the aerial cavalry would clash. Soon the rolling columns of our forces would deploy into line and go rushing down on Garnath and sweep him away to destruction.
Nedfar’s face resembled a face carved from marble to stand mute for ever above a silent tomb.
“Shanks!” bellowed Rees. He looked just the same, hot, quick, enormously vital, a man among men, and a good comrade. Maybe his misfortunes had not weighed him down as much as I had feared. The idea that Rees and Chido would not recognize Hamun ham Farthytu was one I could not entertain seriously. Even after all this lapse of time. So I looked like Dray Prescot, with all the foolishness of Hamun’s face fled, and my own craggy old beakhead serving me in the office of a face.
Nedfar glanced at me, for I had — with an instinct I had failed to quell — drawn back a fraction. The instinct was not one of flight, I believe, as one of reluctance to jeopardize the character of Hamun. And, also, to let the world see that the Emperor of Hamal and not of Vallia commanded here.
“Dray?”
“There is only one thing we can do.” As I spoke I was aware of the eyes of Rees and Chido. Lion-man’s eyes, and apim eyes, they sized me up. Yes, the thoughts behind those eyes seemed to be saying, yes, you may be the Emperor of Vallia; but we have spent a large part of our lives fighting your friends. Why should we trust you now?
I spoke. I used the didactic, proclaiming style, forceful, rather pompously foolish to me.
“As for Vallia, we will fight Shanks whenever and wherever they may be found.”
“Aye!” roared my officers, clustered to the side of the Hamalese.
“And for Djanduin, likewise, I pledge ourselves.”
Now the Djangs bellowed.
“And I speak for Hyrklana,” shouted Hardur Mortiljid, Trylon of Llanikar. That massive man in full armor and with his arsenal of weapons towered impressively. “We slay Shanks!”
Now the Hyrklese raised their cheer.
Every eye fastened on Nedfar.
Every eye but mine.
I looked at Tyfar.
The choice here was between advantage and honor, between the life and the death of the spirit. The alternatives were clear cut and unambiguous. Tyfar stood poised, as though ready to spring into instant action. I thought I knew him, from the moment down the Moder he had used his intelligence to work out the riddle and his courage to pull the chain that might kill him. I thought Jaezila would not choose amiss.
One of Nedfar’s pallans, a man of the utmost honesty, a man who had exhibited extreme loyalty in difficult times, Strom Nevius, leaned forward toward Nedfar. Nevius had a nervous tic about his face, and a bad skin; but he was a man valued in our camp.
“Majister, to do as these people ask is to let King Telmont slip away. Who knows if another chance like this will occur again? And the Shanks can be dealt with later.”
Rees heard.
“They are many. They came in a vast fleet. Once they are established you may never dislodge them. And they eat the heart out of Vad Chido’s lands!”
Tyfar came to life.
“We must send word to King Telmont. He will direct his army to march with us against our common enemy.”
“Garnath will never let him!” shouted someone from the other side of Nedfar.
“We are all Hamalese!” shouted someone else.
“Let us march on our own account!”
“The Shanks will overpower us!”
“Will you take the message?” said Nedfar, and the hullabaloo died as the emperor spoke. “Trylon Rees, will you take our imperial message to Vad Garnath? Tell him we march to fight the Shanks and invite him to march at our side.”
Chido let out a yell.
“That is not possible—”
“Wait, wait, Chido,” rumbled Rees. His golden whiskers blazed.
Tyfar said, “What is the problem? We are all committed here to our commands.”
“I understand that.” Rees stared at us, at our glittering popinjay show. His armor was plain and workmanlike. “You are far too committed to leave your commands.”
It was perfectly clear that these people here did not know the situation between Garnath and Rees. Garnath had sent assassins and they had slain Rees’s eldest son. The two men must have kept apart in the intervening years. The famous laws of Hamal, knowing nothing of Garnath’s actions, would unhesitatingly condemn Rees if he took the law into his own hands. And he was not a man for assassins.
I said, “This fellow Garnath does not know me. I shall go down and tell him where his duty lies. Aye, and old Hot and Cold, too.”
Tyfar said, “Jak! He’ll have you killed—”
“You cannot go, Dray,” said Nedfar. “I forbid it.”
Seg laughed.
“Let the Emperor of Vallia go, if he wills!” shouted up Rees. “Let the Vallians do some good in the world for a change.”
“We must all wally wound!” That was Chido, spluttering as of old, and yet hard now, bitter with what the years had done to his country and to Rees. Obviously, Chido had taken Rees in and cared for him after the debacle. We three had been comrades. Rather, these two and Hamun had been comrades.
“I’m going, anyway,” I said.
With that I broke away from the splendid group around Nedfar and stalked across to my zorca, old Snuffle-nose, a beautiful gray, whom I had not intended to ride in the battle. Generals on white horses, despite the superstitions regarding generals on black horses, tend to get shot at.
Tyfar started, “Jak!” Then, knowing me, he swung on his father and the assembled Kapts. “Get the army started! We march for the coast. Vad Chido! You will guide us.”
“Right willingly, prince,” sang out Chido.
He and Rees stared after me, for I turned back to see if the folk back there had made up their minds. They had, for messengers sped off to the various banners to carry the new orders. I swung up on Snuffle-nose and shook the reins.
I felt absolutely no surprise to see Seg riding up. There was no need for him to say anything. We rode out before the army, to the edge of the hill, in silence.
Then Seg said, “Your Sword Watch and your Yellow Jackets will follow. You know that.”
“When you are Emperor of Pandahem, Seg, you’ll have your own damn worries about bodyguards. I can’t wait for the day.”
“By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom! I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“I’m not forcing you. I just happen to know it’s a job you can do.”
With the accompaniment of the clip-clop of the zorca’s hooves, the creak of leather and jingle of harness, we rode slowly down the hill, talking about anything save the business we were engaged in.
“You’ve really got it in for me, haven’t you? Trying to make me an emperor.”