Armada of Antares (10 page)

Balass still kept his shield up. His thraxter moved in that short deadly arc, a blurred upthrusting of steel, and Handon staggered back, screeching, his rapier and dagger falling from nerveless fingers, spraying his guts out from his ripped-apart stomach.

I relaxed. It had been a near thing, but Balass the Hawk was a true kaidur; he had fought in the arena and he knew what the taste of blood was all about.

Lykon looked abruptly defeated. The girls at the ends of the chains were very quiet, anticipating unpleasant evenings for a long time ahead.

I walked across.

“Your boastful Numim is dead, Kov. I would like to buy these girls from you.”

He looked at me, hot-eyed, but there was a haggardness about him. I think he was as well aware as any one of my freedom-fighters there, now creating an enormous hullabaloo of triumph, that I myself had not fought because too much was known about the fighting habits of Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor. Had I won no man would believe that it was because the shield is a powerful instrument in battle. They would have put the victory down to my own prowess at arms. Now Balass had proved my point.

“Sell them?” Kov Lykon recollected himself. I did not know just how much he had bet. “Sell my little pretties?”

The two girls were looking at me as though I was either mad or of divine origin. That settled it in my mind. They were no voluntary slaves; they did not enjoy being chained up, humiliated, and expected to shrill, squeak, and feign enjoyment each time the master playfully tortured them with words or whip.

“You owe me the wagers, Kov. You owe me much money, for your Numim failed you. I will cancel the debt for the girls.”

So that was how we arranged it, and I struck the chains off. Tilly, my gorgeous golden-furred Fristle fifi took them off to wash the sores, bathe them, and dress them in fine sensil and so decide their future as free women.

The very next day the army sailed for Pandahem.

Before I left I told Balass, most sternly, “He got over your shield, Balass! Careless. Although, I will admit, he was very good.”

“Aye, Dray,” said Balass. “He was good.
Was.”

I laughed. “And now you will train the coys — that is, these brave young fighting men of mine — train them to stand in line and use sword and shield, train them to stand against the iron men of Hamal.”

“Such will be my pleasure. But I can only train them to fight. For tactics and drill — all these things — you will need a drill master.”

“Yes. You train them to fight with shield and sword, or see how the glaive fits in. Tom ti Vulheim will provide the drill masters, and for the new drills we shall need . . . well, I’ll have to think on that.”

The truth was that I had already thought of this problem and had already reached a solution. I feel sure you will guess easily where I intended to obtain my drill masters in this new-fangled — to my blade comrades of Valka — mode of fighting.

Naghan Kholin Donamair was absolutely furious. His four fists beat the air. His eyes protruded. He was one enraged Djang.

“But, King! My flutduins are ready, the young Valkans trained — well, trained enough to give an account of themselves, by Zodjuin of the Silver Stux! And the chicks are hatching well, so the next generation is assured.”

I shook my head. “I do not punish you by asking you to stay here, Naghan. Your task is great. We must build up a corps of flyers here in Valka. The flutduins are vital.”

“But, my King! You go off to war and I do not go with you?”

“By Holy Djan himself! I ask this of you as a favor, for I know the agony you suffer. But if Hamal wins, if Vallia goes under, won’t those cramphs of Hamal turn south through the Dawn Lands? How long will it be before they come knocking on the Mountains of Mirth? And do you think they will be sucked in as the Gorgrens were? Well, by Zodjuin of the Stormclouds, what do you think, Naghan Donamair?”

It just wasn’t fair of me. I know that. These wonderful four-armed Djangs of mine have no heads for statecraft, strategy, and the intricacies of diplomacy. Give them a sword and a shield, a bow and a quiver of arrows, a joat or a flutduin, and they are the bravest fighters one could ask for. So I bamboozled poor Naghan, but I was right. His place was here, in Valka, training my aerial cavalry.

Saying goodbye to Delia came with the shock of abrupt agony.

She had said she was coming with me and had started rummaging out her leathers and the brave scarlet breechclout and sash. But I knew her condition would prevent her from joining me, as, of course, she knew herself. But, still, being Delia, she argued.

“And suppose the little fellow’s born in the middle of a battlefield, under a flap of canvas, with headless corpses all around?”

She laughed at me. She mocked me. “Oh, Dray, Dray! And don’t you think that’s just about the most fitting place a son of yours could be born?”

I was furious. “Delia! Anyone would think I liked wars and bloody battles—”

She was serious at once, those wonderful brown eyes warm and tender. “I know, dear heart. But your life has been hard, one of fighting — yes, all for very good reasons! And I think that long before Kregen is a fit world in which to bring up children, as you have so often told me, then he must learn to cope and fight as quickly as may be.”

“But suppose he’s a girl?”

“Suppose he’s twins again?”

I sighed. “Well, Delia, my girl, you are not coming with me, and that is final. You’d best get Thelda for I know she loves you, even if she means well, poor soul.” Here I did Seg’s wife Thelda an injustice, and both Delia and I knew I only prattled on about yesterday. “And Inch, too. Time that long streak was married, anyway.”

“I shall stay here, in Esser Rarioch.”

I hummed and hawed, but I suppose she was right. Valka was now a real home to her, and she had many friends here.

“And Doctor Nath the Needle.”

“Do not fret, dear heart!”

“Excellent advice that it is impossible to take!”

There was no question of my not going. Delia was the daughter of an Emperor and she would have looked at me rather strangely if I had said I was not going because she was to have a baby — or, as she lived on Kregen, the strong possibility of two babies.

“Turko the Shield will bear his great shield over you, so promise me you’ll stay there, and not rush out like you always do!”

In giving her the promise I recollected that I might rush out anyway, forgetting in the heat of the moment. And she, the witch, understood that, too, for she said: “Well, I will not take your promise and lock it in my golden chest with a golden lock. But, Dray Prescot!” When she spoke like that it paid me to take heed. “Take care of yourself and come back with everything still attached to that body of yours! Do you hear?”

I kissed her most tenderly and said goodbye to the twins, and everyone else. There were so many RembereesI was two long burs about it. Then I went down to the galleon and so, at last, we set sail for Pandahem.

A number of high nobles and Pallans made a last-minute attempt to halt the expedition. Led by Kov Lykon and the dowager Kovneva Natyzha, they put forward powerful arguments, the chief of which worried me. His ran like this: “If we send a force to Pandahem to fight the Hamalians, and they are not at war with us, won’t this enrage them, be tantamount to a declaration of war on our part, and won’t they then really determine to overthrow us?”

I had thought about this, and decided that the obvious answer, “A Zorca shod today is a herd saved tomorrow,” while being true, was not ample enough. We had to make an attempt to stop the Hamalians at any risk — and I knew the risk did not exist for it had already taken place.

One of the Emperor’s council of the Presidio, a lean tall man with a scarred face who talked little, one Nath Ulverswan, the Kov of the Singing Forests, spoke and out of surprise obtained all ears. “You do ill, Majister, in allowing this headstrong son-in-law of yours to drag honest Vallians to their deaths over the sea. We are a sea people and we rely on our galleons. Buy mercenaries to fight, in the old way.” Then he ceased and sat down. The Singing Forests extended for many kools just south of the Mountains of the North in Vallia, and this Kov Nath Ulverswan was a man rich among rich men.

I stood up and said, “Much of what Kov Nath says is true. But times have changed. In any case, the expedition will seem to be composed entirely of mercenaries. We will not wear Vallian clothes or colors. We fight for pay, on behalf of the Kov of Bormark. There should be no repercussions.”

I had sought for this scheme and used it desperately. But it was accepted, for the Emperor still wielded power to push through this kind of measure against the opposition of his enemies in the Presidio.

So it was with much regret that I left my flag, that yellow cross on a scarlet field, that battle flag fighting men call “Old Superb,” in the high hall of the fortress of Esser Rarioch.

Instead we carried Pando’s colors, the blue field charged with the blazing golden form of the wild zhantil.

The same orders had been sent via voller messengers to Ortyg Coper and Kytun Dom — true comrades both — in far Djanduin. When my ferocious Djang warriors joined me with their flutduin regiments, they, too, would fly the blue flag with the golden zhantil emblazoned at its center. I guessed that Ortyg Coper would run Djanduin in my absence, as its civil head, and Kytun would fly with his warriors to fight at my side.

I was not wrong.

Kytun Kholin Dom, his coppery hair flowing as wildly as ever, his four arms wide in a gigantic embrace, leaped from the first voller to touch down at our camp in a small bay to the east of the northern coastline of Tomboram. We were not too many dwaburs west of Jholaix here, for the army of Hamal pressed ever on from the west, overrunning Pando’s own Kovnate of Bormark.

“Dray! King!” He enfolded me in three of his bear-like arms and I tensed my gut. He punched me there, so I punched him back with fifty percent of my arms, and his seventy-five percent hugged me while the other twenty-five rat-a-tatted against my stomach. “Dray! King! By Holy Djan himself!”

Well, such is the temper of my Djangs. I fancied my Valkans would find themselves in the company of their peers, if not their superiors, when it came to drinking, brawling, and fighting. A four-armed man holds a tremendous advantage over us two-armed types, I fear.

The Pachaks, with their two left arms, hold many advantages, also, and I had high hopes for the regiments of those we had brought, too.

Soon messengers from Tomboram arrived. We had timed it nicely, Kytun complaining boisterously of the long haul here, all the way up from Djanduin in the southwest corner of Havilfar, along the South Lohvian Sea and, avoiding the Sea of Chem, striking inland northeastward over the Orange River and Ordsmot. From there they’d flown north, skirting the badlands and that area where no flier or flyer would voluntarily go. Here Kytun made a face.

“These damned fliers aren’t what they used to be, Dray! In the old days, by Djondalar, fliers flew! This new rubbish we bought from Hamal breaks down all the time!”

“There is this war, Kytun,” I said gently, “which is being fought in part over that matter.”

“Then let us get to it, by Asshurphaz! We lost two good vollers over in the badlands, and Kodun Myklemair was flying one of ’em, a fine lad, may the Curse of Rig strike those cramphs of Hamal!”

I expressed my regret. Although I did not know the young Djang personally, his name was that of an honored family.

Kytun had brought his men in a wide sweep to avoid the Hamalians in South Pandahem and so, curving to the northwest around between the Koroles and Astar, had driven swiftly across Tomboram here.

The messengers from King Nemo of Tomboram — for that fat greasy rast still sat on the throne here, for all he quaked in his high black boots and his black bar mustache quivered with the fury of his ferocious and petty nature — assumed a high and mighty air of importance. I held down my rage. I had dealt with their kind before. I said, “You will wait until the Kov of Bormark or his messengers arrive.”

The chief of these messengers from King Nemo was a hard-faced man, bulky, in the flamboyant robes of his kind. He bristled up, his hand to his rapier. His face was covered with purplish spots, and his nose was a mere bloated purple cauliflower.

“I am Lart Mosno, Kov of Memberensis, and my Kovnate does not lie beneath the heel of the invader! The King commands—”

“I have had dealings with your King Nemo before,” I told him, very brisk. “I let him inspect my dagger. But if you must prattle, Kov Lart, tell me what you know of Kov Pando.”

He laughed, nastily, like a leem sneezing.

“Better ask his mother, Tilda the Fair!”

I took his neck between my fingers. I did not choke him, much. I let him breathe. His fellows gaped at the swords in the hands of my people, ringing them.

“We have come here to assist you in fighting the Hamalians. You had best keep a civil tongue in your head. I will ask you only once more: What of Kov Pando?”

He gobbled a little and spittle ran down. He managed to blurt out: “His army was broken and he was forced to flee. The King has put a price on his head for treachery. As for his mother, Tilda of the Many Veils . . .”

“Yes?”

“She . . .” He swallowed and avoided my eyes, which I allow must have been glaring and mad. I thought of what Inch had told me.

“She drinks,” I said. “I know that. Speak!”

“Yes, yes! They are hiding somewhere, I hear! My neck! I beg you, put me down!”

I hadn’t realized I was lifting him off his feet, his face a bright and brilliant purple, his neck white under my grasp. I set him down with a crash that jarred his teeth. He moaned.

“The dowager Kovneva Tilda is drunk all the time, and the Kov Pando Marsilus, Kov of Bormark, has no army, no wealth, no friends, and is under interdict! If the King catches him in his skulking place he will be executed, by royal order!”

The Battle of Tomor Peak

Ishook this Kov Lart.

“You are mistaken, onker! Kov Pando has an army, friends, and wealth! For they are here, surrounding you with steel! And if King Nemo harms a hair of his head, or his mother’s, I shall hang him from the highest spire in his own damned palace! Is that clear?”