Omens of Kregen (7 page)

In the tiny space between the outer and inner flaps of the tent she stopped and kissed me. I kissed her; by Zair! This was what mattered in life, and all the rest could go hang.

We went on through and a little party had gathered to meet Drak, as was proper. During the meal and after, we talked and many of my thoughts found expression. Drak brought up the point of what forces he would be allotted.

“You commanded the First Army down in the southwest. The Second is over in the northeast. I suggest you retain command of the First, taking up what forces you require and can be spared from the southwest. Vodun Alloran will move the Ice Floes of Sicce to make amends, so that corner of the island is now safe.”

“Very well. And the Second Army?”

“You assume command of both. You’re going to have a hell of a task breaking through and hooking left.”

He nodded and sat back in his seat. A very tough and very hard man, this son of mine, a man destined to be an emperor, as I surely was not. Well, perhaps that is wrong. Perhaps the destiny that was forced on Dray Prescot through being a sailorman and soldier, a slave, a mercenary, a kaidur, has brought him to the ranks of various nobilities, and does also include the sentence being passed on him of being a king and emperor.

“Turko sent a lot of his Ninth Army up to help Seg,” Delia pointed out.

I’d retained the name of the Eighth Army for sentimental reasons, connected with thorn-ivy, and was using it again for this campaign into North Vallia.

“Of course,” went on Delia, “knowing Seg as we do we must not be surprised if he inspires the people of Balkan and becomes their High Kov very quickly and then marches over the mountains to help us. Yes?”

Drak said: “I hope Silda...” Then he stopped himself.

Delia and I knew what was in his mind. Well, I’d suffered enough for Delia’s sake, and now Drak suffered for Silda.

Now it is not my intention to give a blow-by-blow account of the North Vallian Campaign. The broad outlines of our plan were followed through with accuracy enough to ensure that the plan worked.

Drak took elements of the First and Second Armies around the east of the mountains and I took my Eighth around the western end of the mountains after we routed the hostile advance force at the Battle of the Blue Lizdun.

Now that the end was in sight we were joined by many folk who, even in the troublous times through which we had gone, had contrived to remain neutral. Neutral, one should add, in stance, for any neutral may have to suffer armed men marching through his lands and eating his produce and doing the unwholesome things badly led armies do even if the sufferers are not openly enemies.

Maybe it is churlish of me to say that; but we could have done with the help of these people earlier on. One such, of course, was the lord of Balkan; but he had reached the end of his journey upon Kregen and had shuffled off to meet the Gray Ones beckoning on the Ice Floes of Sicce. He died without living issue. Seg’s campaign up in Balkan came, in after years, to be talked about as a marvel of diplomacy, tact, firmness and plain good commonsense. He had the Balkans solidly for him in a miraculously short space of time.

The pronunciation of Balkan is not like the terrestrial “ball” but like “bat.” I mention this because Seg’s Hyr Kovnate of Balkan was nothing like the Balkans here on Earth. Also the stress falls on the second syllable: Bal
kan
.

He sent me regular letters by merker, those spry young folk who skim through the air aboard their birds carrying important messages. We had instituted the merker system in Vallia on a small scale, importing from Djanduin a useful colony of the small fast birds used there, the fluttcleppers.

I was seriously considering asking some of my winged friends who lived down south in Havilfar if they might not care to emigrate and come to live with us in Vallia. It seemed to me a flying man or woman was even more suitable as a merker.

Still, that must be for the future.

Right now we had the North Vallian campaign to fight and to bring to a successful conclusion.

The days went by in marching and flying forward until we bumped the hostiles again and then we would fight. Battles were fought of intense ferocity. Others were over after our first charge.

Drak’s fortunes prospered on the east. And Seg, that astounding blade comrade of mine, Seg Segutorio, did just as Delia said he would.

The merker flew in with Seg’s latest. He had gathered a goodly force and was headed through the Kazzchun Pass to create mayhem in the center of North Vallia, in the province of Durheim. As he wrote: “I have experience of a River called the Kazzchun, so it is suitable, my old dom, I learn about a pass with the same name.”

I smiled as I read this. The kovnate province of Durheim lay to the east and was separated by the River of Golden Sliptingers from the hyr-kovnate of Erstveheim to the west. My Eighth had sent a corps to the south west into the finger of land containing the vadvarate of Thothveheim, and the main body of the army was now pushing hard to the northeast through Erstveheim. Drak had to negotiate the trylonate of Tremi before bursting through into Durheim.

So, like the three flukes of a trident, and those three prongs would cooperate fully, we were poised to rip the fraudulent kingdom of North Vallia to shreds — and then to repair and reunite with the homeland.

Marion said to me one day as the wind blew over our shoulders, fluttering scarves and swelling the sails of the vorlcas: “Prince Drak will surely detach a force to march north?”

At her shoulder stood her husband, Strom Nango. I could not detect avarice in either of their faces; rather Marion looked sad, and Nango concerned.

“Cheer up, Marion. I expect Drak will do so; but I will send him a direct order to that effect. After all, I am still the emperor, am I not?”

She did not rally to my feeble humor.

“Thank you, majister. To think that at last I shall return to Huvadu. I never believed it, not in my heart.”

Nango said nothing.

I was a trifle perplexed. “By Vox, Marion! I’d think you’d be overjoyed.”

“Oh, I am happy that Huvadu is to be mine again. Yes, that is true. But when I go there to take command of the force Prince Drak sends, I shall leave you. And I shall leave my splendid regiment of Jikai Vuvushis.” She put the nail of her middle finger under her eye. “And I shall leave the Empress Delia.”

There was nothing much I could say to that.

I did say: “You have our best wishes, Marion.”

Then, with a flash of inspiration that came, I suppose, from cowardly cunning, I added: “Oh, and, of course, Marion, you must take your girls with you. I won’t hear of anything else.”

Before she could react — and I’d no idea how she would take this stroke — Delia turned up and I was able to slope off and see about a gros-varter that had been shooting crookedly.

Chapter six

A dagger in the night

The Battle of Gwalherm turned out to be a desperate affair.

This upstart King of North Vallia cleverly drew us onto a strongly fortified position which, in the normal way, we would have bypassed and possibly masked. As it was he’d sited the line of entrenchments across a convenient line of march. We were into the battle almost before we were aware.

In the end we managed to tumble him off, and a magnificent charge by a division of heavy cavalry finally threw him out.

I call this king an upstart. Well, by Krun, and so was I.

All the same, my upstartedness was the result of the people of Vallia calling me to be their emperor. We had heard stories of the cruelty of this North Vallian king, who apparently went by a number of names. The latest name he was using we gathered was Nath the Greatest Ever. Previously, he had been known as Naghan the Mighty, and Larghos the Magnificent. What his real name might be, no one knew. That, then, is the reason I have not given his name before in this narrative. But now we were closing in, and the time for names was either approaching or was past.

Northwest of Erstveheim in a kind of slice of the coast lies the vadvarate of Venga.

Well, now. Venga. The Vadnicha of the place, Ashti Melekhi, had long since taken her way to the Ice Floes of Sicce. I wondered how she fared there, and if the fates that draw their harp strings into the long moaning sounds of destiny had yet passed her through to the sunny uplands beyond.

We had to send a force into Venga, that was clear.

I had negated the idea of splitting the Eighth Army into a drive northward into Evir as well as our eastward push to link with Seg and Drak.

Still, Venga would lie at our backs as we pressed on east. In the end a Corps was formed and sent off under the command of Chuktar Modo Na-Du, a Pachak of immense competence from Zamra. We were by those divisions weaker; but now that Vallia had, all but these northern provinces, been re-united, we had reinforcements coming in gratifyingly often.

Later on as we sat around the campfire after we’d visited the wounded and sung a few songs with the swods, Delia said to me, “You were hard on poor Marion.”

“You think so? I am not sure. She was mighty proud of her girls.”

“Yes. She gloried that they were part of the emperor’s jurukker jikai.”

“You know how itchy I get when I see girls in battle—”

“I do know.” She put her hand on my hand, and I curled my fingers and held hers. “You’re a funny old stick, particularly one who is an emperor. Y’know, Dray, we ought to have had Jilian form the guard Jikai Vuvushis.”

“I would have liked that. Jilian Sweet Tooth. I wonder where she is now and what deviltry she’s up to.”

“She has her mission in life.”

“Aye.”

Jilian was an old comrade. You may spell her name Sweet Tooth or Sweetooth, I gathered, either being correct. I believe I preferred the former.

Over our heads the glittering majesty of the stars of Kregen flashed and twinkled in their massed glory. Up here in the north of Vallia the nights grew frosty. The fourth Moon of Kregen, She of the Veils, cast down her golden-roseate light. All about us rose the sounds of an army encampment at night. The sentries patrolled. I lay back.

“The quicker we meet up with Seg and Drak the better.”

“We will, my heart, we will. And then?”

“So much to do—”

“There always is. Drak and Silda’s wedding, for a start.”

“Don’t remind me.”

For a space we were silent, relishing the night.

Then Delia said, “This Nath the Greatest Ever may form up to challenge us again on Losobrin’s Edge, or he may throw himself into the town of Erdensmot and defy us there.”

I made a face. “Neither prospect charms me. I have no desire to charge up against the entrenchments he can arrange on Losobrin’s Edge. I’m told the place is formidable. But then, a siege of Erdensmot will not be pretty.”

“If we march around him—”

I know I sounded fretful. “If only Farris could scrape up some more fliers for us!”

“One would have thought,” said Delia with some acerbity, “that now Hamal is safe they would be able to build as many vollers as were required.”

“There is continual trouble over by the Mountains of the West, as we know. I suppose that’s it. Anyway, we continue to build vorlcas; but wood is getting to be a problem now.”

“The Singing Forests grow wood enough, for the sake of Opaz!”

“Aye. We will have to establish vorlca yards there. And, my heart, you will notice how cleverly I am leaving all the appointments of new nobility to Drak? There are many provinces at present ruled by our justicars. Once the wars are over, we must find good faithful folk to be made up to nobles.”

Delia gave me a calculating look. “Old Nath Ulverswan was the Kov of the Singing Forests,” she said.

“Yes, he was a Racter, too, I suppose. He never said much, did he?”

“Old Clamped Jaws. The point is, the Singing Forests lie due south of the Mountains of the North, immediately to the west of Seg’s Bakan.”

I saw what she meant at once. Also I noticed she said “Bakan,” the old name, instead of the newer “Balkan.”

“You think the Presidio will agree?”

“If you tell them, they will.”

“I’m not so sure. I don’t want to carry on ruling by fiat. The Presidio must be seen to rule fairly. I’m thinking of starting up elections—”

“Elections? But we are an empire, Dray!”

“I was elected to be emperor.”

“Oh, yes, of course; but that was different.”

“Well, I’m thinking of it. I’ll speak to Drak about Seg and the Singing Forests. Mind you, Seg might refuse.”

“He might. But there is Milsi. She is level-headed.”

Because we were who we were and clearly wished to sit by the campfire and talk, we had been left alone. If anyone wished to speak to us they knew they had only to make themselves apparent. We were accessible in a way previous rulers had not been.

A slim figure approached the fire, and stopped, and stood waiting. Delia called out: “Yes, my dear? Step forward.”

The girl walked into the light of the fire. She wore half armor and carried a rapier and main gauche and looked just such a Battle Maiden as existed in their thousands in most of the armies of Kregen. Her face, rosy from the reflected fireglow, did not smile. She looked indrawn and serious. I did not recognize her.

Neither did Delia. She was not, I judged, a member of the Sisters of the Rose.

“What is it?” said Delia, and her voice was not quite as gentle as before.

“A message,” said the Jikai Vuvushi.

Now I’m no stickler for protocol or for stupid and slavish kow-towing, as you know, by Krun. Yet this girl ought to speak with more civility to Delia on more than one count.

I started to stand up.

With a shriek chillingly demoniacal, a scream of utter madness, the girl hurled herself forward, and the long slender Vallian dagger in her fist glittered in the light of the moon.

That lethal blade struck viciously down at Delia.

Without drawing a weapon, so filled with terror for Delia and hate and loathing for this murdering girl, I hurled myself forward.

Now Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, is expert with very many of the varied weapons of Kregen, but if there is just one weapon of which she is the consummate mistress, that is the long slender Vallian dagger.