A Victory for Kregen (25 page)

And, to be truthful, there was far more of trust in Drak than could be expressed by mere hope.

On the same day that the news of Layco Jhansi’s raid reached us our vanguard flew off for Ovalia.

They flew in all the vollers we had. A regiment of churgurs, sword and shield men, and a regiment of archers, almost one thousand men. The swods in the ranks of these regiments were old hands, they had served with me before and would have to form one of the hard cores of the little force. The other hard core, it goes without saying, would be the Tenth Kerchuri. The pikes would have to stand, and hold, and charge, as they had been trained, and no one must allow doubt to creep in that these men, these brumbytes wielding their pikes in the files, were green, raw, and had seen no action.

Like that half-blinded man standing on the center and seeking to strike out in all directions at those who attacked him, we of Vondium had lashed out northeast and southwest. And Layco Jhansi had seized his chance to raid us from the northwest. It was perfectly clear by the presence of a Hamalese Kapt with his forces that the dirty finger of Hamal was busy stirring up this pot. The fight would be tough; we’d be facing regulars, possibly some of the iron legions of Hamal, as well as the screaming fanatical irregulars of Jhansi’s cowed provinces.

The regiments from the Fifth Brigade of churgurs and the Ninth Brigade of archers who had flown off had served with me at the Battles of Kanarsmot. They were good men. The remaining two regiments of each Brigade, together with a motley bunch of spearmen, slingers, and axemen waited transportation.

The flying ships of the air gathered on Voxyri Drinnik and that broad space of open land seethed with all the commotion of an army embarking. I call it an army; well, yes, it was in spirit and composition and determination if not in numbers.

The Presidio met to deliberate, as was their wont, and I spent a couple of precious burs speaking to them from the rostrum, impressing on these grave senators the need for cool heads in this time of crisis.

They ran the country and knew of my dreams of the kind of country I had been asked to bring into being by the people who had called me. There was a little of the wheeling and dealing that had characterized the reign of the old emperor still in evidence; but these men were a new breed of senator. Naghan Strandar, whom I trusted, stood up to reply, and he astonished me.

“Majister! You have made us, and we are mindful of that.” The council chamber in the Villa of Vennar echoed to his words, and the rows of soberly clad men listened with composed faces. “The old emperor is dead and with him died the Valhan Dynasty. You are the first of the Prescot Dynasty of Vallia. We shall serve you and the country no matter what transpires.”

I sat in the seat reserved for the emperor and listened as he went on for a short space in these terms. I own I found this idea amazing. Of course, I had begun a new dynasty in Vallia. It was something I had scarcely even acknowledged. And, as you who understand the Kregish will perceive, Valhan had a special meaning. The upshot of that was a vow of total allegiance to Vallia, and a determination to bring every last ounce of energy and will to the struggle.

Going back to see the leathery swods boarding the vessels, I reflected that great words do, very often, deserve great deeds. And, as Erithor, the great poet of Valka, would have said, the opposite holds true, also.

Two men attempted to desert and were caught and dragged before me as I sat Grumbleknees with the dust blowing and the pandemonium bellowing up all over the Drinnik.

“Let them go,” I said. “Put them to work baking bread, or cleaning sewers, or forging weapons.”

“But, majister!” said Chuktar Vogan, commanding the Ninth Brigade of archers. “They should be hanged up high so that all men may see the miserable cramphs!”

“Then they would be dead, Vogan. Mayhap, after a dwabur or so of sewers, they might rescind their decision to desert.”

Chuktar Vogan saw only the obvious, brutal side of that. He guffawed, and slapped his thigh, and allowed the emperor was blessed with brains from Opaz himself.

I had no time to try to explain that any man had the right to feel fear at battles to come, that running away was a natural and healthy thing to do if you wanted to keep your skin intact, that simple brutal warfare was a horrendous thing which no civilized man should have to endure. He would not have grasped those concepts, not with a raging pack of Hamalese coming down to burn his home and slay his family. I could see both sides of this pathetic human problem, and sighed, and could see no way out for me other than doing what I was doing, and hoping for the best in the sweet light of the Invisible Twins.

I suppose that the agonies a woman suffers in anticipation of childbirth, and then in the birth itself, are analogous to the agonies a man suffers in the anticipation of battle, and the ghastly event itself. Something like, perhaps...

“My Val!” said Orlon Sangar ti Deliasmot. “Majister, I’m delighted to get the chance of showing you what my lads can do. By Vox, I thought I’d rot in Vondium forever.”

Orlon Sangar came from Delphond. He was the Kerchurivax in command of the Tenth Kerchuri. He had risen through the ranks in the Third, and the Third was by way of being a special phalanx to Nath Nazabhan and me. I nodded.

“Your lads will do well, Orlon. I just wish we had more of you.”

He made the expected reply. Well, that answer has been given many and many a time before a battle, on two worlds...

The brumbytes handed in their pikes as they boarded. These long weapons were bundled and then lashed to the ships. The men kept their shields, and they hung them on the bulwarks in fine style. There was a deal of the horseplay and raucous coarse humor inevitably surrounding the movement of green troops. These men had been trained hard; but only the faxuls of the front ranks, and not all of them, had seen active service. A wisp of nerves can be concealed beneath a huge guffaw and a practical joke.

Essential though the religious ceremony honoring and imploring Opaz most certainly was, I own — a coarse, profane, swearing kind of fellow as I am — I chafed to have it over with and get the troops airborne. When the prayers for the safekeeping of the men and for the victory were offered up and the voice of the chief priest rang to silence, a deep stillness held all Voxyri Drinnik. Absolute quiet for ten long heartbeats proved how wrong I was, how much the feelings of the soldiers had been affected, how needful this was. Then a cough, the scrape of a boot, and the Deldars yelling, the shrill notes of trumpets.

Even the flags began to rustle again.

One of the texts chosen as suitable for the service was the well-known advice from the Instructions to Novices. This says, in effect: “Be Brave, Bold, and Resourceful; Fret not on the Hazard.” A fair comparison may be made with Aristophanes in The Frogs, where he uses words of similar meaning and intent. Easy to give advice and harder than keeping warm on the Ice Floes of Sicce to take it. I had accepted the risk and, in theory, should now push all thoughts of the hazard from my mind and go forward in bold confidence. But, while that might be fine for your valiant and daring prince, for me, plain Dray Prescot, the doubts and premonitions of disaster remained. Weak, of course; but in my usual fashion I put a tough face on my ugly old beakhead and concealed the torture and turmoil in my head from my comrades.

Then an event occurred which the doubter would take merely as a trifle from a Fairy Story. One of the new regiments of zorca archers was loading. The animals were being led up the gangplanks, and the cavalrymen were in the usual lather, yelling, pushing, pulling, cajoling the zorcas into the ship. A commotion greater than usual began as I cantered by. I was riding Fango, a fine bay zorca, who had lost a hand-breadth of his spiral horn at some time in his career. The imperial stables had fashioned a new horn tip for him from Chemnite ivory, neatly banded with gold. Grumbleknees and Snowy were having the day off.

“Catch him!” The shouts spurted up. “Grab the beast!”

Cavalrymen went spinning every which way, their red uniforms dusty and stained already. A monstrous black shape reared high, hooves lashing, nostrils crimson, seeming to breathe fire. His eyes glittered in the light of the suns. Down he came, roaring down the ramp, scattering folk like ninepins. Straight up to me he galloped, horn up, tail flying, mane splendid. Fango backed off, alarmed, thinking he was being attacked.

“Majister!” They were yelling. “The emperor is in danger from a wild beast! Shoot the zorca down!”

“Hold!” I bellowed. I really let go a shout that rattled the teeth in their heads. I gentled Fango and as the huge black zorca crashed alongside I laid a hand on his head.

“Shadow!”

And Shadow threw up his head and whinnied, glorious in his shining splendor.

Shadow... A great-hearted zorca with whom I had built a special relationship of trust and affection, and whom I had thought lost in Vondium, and yet, and yet... Always I had known we would meet again.

That was quickly sorted out. I was told Shadow had been found in Vond, dwaburs away from Vondium, and in our eternal quest for quality zorcas had been brought into the army. He had always given trouble, being highly independent-minded. The Jiktar to whom he had been issued sighed with relief when I said, “He is my zorca, Jiktar.” I dismounted. “Take Fango. He is a first-class animal and you will joy in him.”

“Quidang, majister!”

The saddles were swiftly changed and I stuck my boot into the stirrup and mounted up on Shadow. He showed his pleasure. We had been through many adventures together; we would go through many more.

But in the heady moment of reunion all those perils could wait.

Then another little crisis developed. Long lines of yellow-clad men marched toward the gangplanks. I frowned.

“Larghos the Sko-Handed!” I bellowed.

Larghos came over, beaming. His shoulder wings stuck out far more than regulations allowed. He looked fit and tough.

“Where, Larghos, do you think you are going with those coys?” A coy is a recruit, a greenhorn.

“Coys, majister! Are not they damned assassins? They will fight! By Vox! I will see to that!”

I sighed. What would you do with these fellows?

Nath the Knife had sent us an initial seven hundred young men. They could fight, of course. But they weren’t swods.

Larghos saw my face. “You would not deny them the glory?”

About to break out into bitter invective against this stupid, shuddery, bloody idea of glory, I held my tongue. If our country was in the dire danger we all knew her to be, why should not these fine young men go off to fight? Why should they? Because it was their duty? Because they would be less than men if they did not? No — the reasons lay deeper than that...

Larghos’s slingers went on boarding. Drill the Eye shouted at his bowmen to carry on and rolled over, spluttering, to join his comrade. When Clardo the Clis, his scar burning, nudged his zorca across, I knew I was beaten.

“You are taking the Sword Watch,” pointed out Clardo, with consummate cunning. “They are coys, also—”

“Not quite,” I said.

“Nor neither are we!”

“Very well. You’ll have to skirmish forward. Your drill is not up to formed standards yet.”

“Aye, majister. We’ll skirmish the zigging Hamalian tripes out!”

So that was settled. The Emperor’s Yellow Jackets, the EYJ, joined the Second Regiment of the Emperor’s Sword Watch, the 2ESW, aboard the flying ships. Both men and swods would be created out of the lads embarking. That is life.

The return of the vollers enabled me to send off part of a regiment of totrix heavies. They would still arrive ahead of the sailing fliers. Other units went up to the northwest. Regular reports told me Ovalia was filling up, and the locals were helping with energy.

Consigning the rest of the paperwork to Enevon, confiding the city once again to Naghan Strandar and the Presidio, I collected the last of the troops we were taking and with Turko stepped aboard the voller, observing the fantamyrrh, and took off for Ovalia and destiny.

The messenger stood before me in the Tower of Avoxdon in Ovalia where I had set up headquarters.

His flying leathers were stained and travel worn. He looked exhausted. But before he would allow himself to sit down, this merker would deliver his message from Drak.

“The armies of the Prince Majister are fully committed. He has sent a number of provisional regiments to Vondium, mostly walking wounded and invalids. A brigade of churgurs is on the way to you and is following me within a day.”

Instead of saying anything I indicated the chair and the merker sat with a flummox. His bird was being cared for by the flutswods of my single squadron of flutduins. I stared at him.

“And cavalry?”

“Three squadrons of totrix javelinmen.”

We were short of cavalry, of the land and of the aerial kind. Well, all commanders are always short of cavalry, unless they be barbarian chieftains of a savage host of jutmen, as admirals are always short of frigates. Most of the force sent by Jhansi on this raid into our land consisted of jutmen; many were cavalry, some were mounted infantry riding a variety of animals. The balance of his infantry was carried in airboats. He had mirvols, powerful flying animals, with experienced flutswods to fly them, as his aerial cavalry component. Kapt Hangrol ham Thanoth commanded a powerful and fast-moving force.

We had been operating out of Ovalia for three days now and our initial dispositions had been made. As I sat brooding on this travel-weary merker I thought back to that smart little dust-up Prince Tyfar, Quienyin and our comrades had gone through in the Humped Land. It all added up. Those damned swarthmen had ridden on, confidently, and we had enticed them and tricked them and dazzled them before we’d seen them off. What a fellow may do with half a dozen staunch comrades against superior numbers, surely the same fellow could do with a small army against a larger?