A Life for Kregen (25 page)

Farris, with a pinched look, had spared me a fast single-place airboat. My mission demanded urgency. I missed the fond preparations made by Delia on these occasions, and shifted for myself in the matter of provisions. Be sure I took many wicker hampers. My armory remained as it had been, it had served me well so far.

Observing the fantamyrrh with care as I went aboard I called down the Remberees. Barty had come up to wish me all speed with Opaz. I had a hell of a game with Korero and the others. But the voller was a single-place job and that, it seemed to me, was that.

“I will send for you when the Lord Farris can place a sizable voller at our disposal. But the defense of Vondium is vital and our air fleet — well—” I did not go on.

That dratted storm had not only blown the sailing fliers away from Sicce’s Gates, it had destroyed the majority of them. Farris was busily rebuilding. And we had cut down forests to build those ships...

It would be infantile and pompously stupid of me to suggest that my brief reappearance in Vondium had made a vastly impressive increase in the recuperation of the people from the debacle. But more than one old sweat had said that, by Vox, now I was back and safe they could get on with drilling the coys and look forward to knocking the daylights out of those zigging vovemen. Off on my travels again, I prayed that Farris and Nath and Barty and all the others — including Seg when he had recovered — would, indeed, recreate the Army of Vondium.

For much of the journey the River of Shining Spears paralleled my course. Once I had taken a roundabout way to the Blue Mountains, by way of Delphond, riding a hired zorca. I felt that Korf Aighos would have dealt very harshly with the invaders of Delia’s country. Filbarrka ran the wide plains country at the foot of the Blue Mountains in the fork of the two rivers, and that country, I believed, was the best zorca country in Paz. Now I was going to put to the test the theories Filbarrka held. Despite all the long series of misfortunes, despite what had happened, despite my intense sensation of loneliness, despite the foreboding dread with which I viewed the future in spite of my brave words, I still experienced a profound excitement at what was proposed.

Vallia swirled past below and I ate roast vosk sandwiches and drank superb Kregen tea brewed on the little spirit stove packed within a sturm-wood box. I looked up. Yes, there he was, the Gdoinye, the giant raptor of the Star Lords. A beautiful scarlet and golden bird, glistening in the mingled rays of the Suns of Scorpio, he flew lazily above me, looking down with one beady eye from his sideways cocked head. The Star Lords wanted to know my doings. Well, I felt the uplifting sense that I was far more involved with what I was doing in the here and now, attempting to hold Vallia together, than in the machinations of the Everoinye, who could hurl me back to Earth, four hundred light years away, at a whim.

There appeared to be no sign of the white Savanti dove.

More out of habit than with a positive feeling of enmity, I shook my fist at the Gdoinye. He slanted a wing, and flew away. I went back to my food, and scooped a fistful of palines.

There was a squish pie in the hamper and I thought of Inch, and sighed, and so prepared to finish the long flight and bring the flier to earth. I did not anticipate too much trouble in finding Filbarrka. He would be leading the resistance and, I felt sure, the local people would be solidly on his side, the Vallian side, against the mercenaries and flutsmen and aragorn who had flooded in on the misery of Vallia. A few careful inquiries in out of the way places, and I would be directed to him. I just had to steer clear of the occupation forces.

These things worked out to plan and I caught up with Filbarrka as, big, bluff, red-faced, happily twitching his fingers together, he watched his zorcamen run rings around a hapless party of totrixmen. I landed the flier and walked across, aware of the bows bent against me. But Filbarrka recognized me and bellowed a cheerful greeting.

“Lahal, majister! I am glad to welcome you to the fun. See how the rasts run!”

The totrixmen were remorselessly cut down. I did not particularly relish the sight; but it had to be done if you concede that the freedom and happiness, not to say health, of a country matters more than the lives of its harsh invaders.

The amusing thing here was that Filbarrka did not seem in the least surprised to see me. He talked away, filled with his news, as we jogged along together. In a predominantly grass land I would have thought that guerilla tactics would prove particularly difficult; but Filbarrka would have none of that.

“We ride rings around ’em, majister! And there are the foothills of the Blue Mountains if things get tough.”

My flier was stashed away in a wood and the locals would keep an eye on it. The country was pastureland, lush and lovely, well watered and wooded, and zorcas could live here as though grazing in a zorca heaven. I told Filbarrka that as I was the emperor now, and the Blue Mountains and this plains section of it called Filbarrka, the same name for man and country, was the empress’s, he, Filbarrka na Filbarrka, was now an imperial Justicar and might style himself Nazab. He was pleased. But titles, I felt, meant little to him beside the thrill of simply riding a zorca.

I told him the problem.

He fired up at once. Eager, alive, filled with a fretting spirit, he tore into the problem.

“Voves. Ah, yes, voves...”

He had seen voves in action, having visited my clans in Segesthes at the invitation of Hap Loder. Now he began to talk in his quick, bubbling way, red-faced, twitching, full of cunning and guile and sound common sense.

“As San Blarnoi says,” he observed. “Preparation is improved by digestion. Ha! We have a snug little camp in a fold of the hills — pimples to a Blue Mountain Boy, to be sure — where we can eat and drink — and think. But the tactical situation vis-à-vis a zorca and a vove is fascinating, fascinating. And I have had thoughts, by Vox, yes!

“No clansman would dream of riding against voves with zorcas.”

He did not say: “But they are only shaggy clansmen,” as many a wight would have done in Vallia. For, was not I, Dray Prescot, taken for just such a shaggy graint of a clansman?

He did say with bluff politeness: “We do not have voves to go up against voves with, majister, as they do on the Great Plains.”

“Discard all notions that I can magically produce an army of vove cavalry. The damned Hamalese burned most of the galleons. I’d hazard a guess that the shipping from Zenicce has been engaged to transport these voves we’re up against. And our own sailing skyships were dispersed and smashed up by the storm at Sicce’s Gates. We’re on our own, Nazab Filbarrka. It is zorcas for us—”

“What could be better?” He rubbed his hands as we stepped away from the steeds where handlers were already leading them off, talking to them, cajoling them, for every Filbarrkian loves a zorca. We entered the camp area, tents under the trees in a fold in the hills. The weather remained bright; but I fancied it would rain before morning. The food was good, straight from a looted caravan. Filbarrka ate and drank as hugely as he talked. “The zorca is close-coupled, we know that. A good animal can turn on a copper ob. So we can run rings around voves—”

“They charge in an unbroken knee-to-knee mass.”

“Naturally. They aim to crush anything in their way.”

“They do.”

“So, majister, we are not in the way.”

I quaffed good Vallian wine and hid my smile.

The problem spread out for Filbarrka spurred him on as he would never spur on a zorca. I had my own ideas which I intended should meld in with his, so as to maintain the pleasant harmony. He shared my view that if an army was really serious about fighting to win and to stay alive, or as many swods as might be who would stay alive, the discipline must be instant and automatic. That demanded high-quality officers, and these, too, must instantly obey the orders of their generals. As to these latter, if Filbarrka himself was to be a Kapt, I fancied I’d take his recommendation on the others to be appointed. He drank his wine and then looked at me, his face large and happy in the lamplight.

“How long do I have, majister? And — numbers?”

“As to numbers, the reports I have indicate the clans brought over at least six divisions.”

He nodded, for the calculation was easy. A division consisted of a thousand warriors. The clansmen stuck to the old ways of ranking, so that their Jiktars who commanded the divisions did, in fact, command a thousand.

“By their colors, weapons and harness, it seems, there is more than one clan involved. From what I have been told I have identified the Clan of Rudimwy. The others are unknown to me and must come from north and east of the parts I know.”

“Six thousand vove-mounted cavalry, clansmen, renowned and feared.” He brisked up. “Life is going to be interesting.”

“As to time — yesterday. The army or armies that menace us from the southwest cannot be discounted. The lice that infest Vallia daily suck more blood. And Vondium’s army is not yet rebuilt, not ready.” A nasty thought occurred to me. “Anyway, it will be interesting to see who can train and provide their force first; the army in Vondium or you here.”

That got to him. As I say — nasty.

He drank again and one of his lieutenants — a raffish bunch, these, liberally bedecked with the ritualistic trappings of zorcamen — leaned across and passed the opinion that any zorcaman of Filbarrka, of the Blue Mountains, which was the blessed Delia’s province, could do what ten of those fat and callous-arsed citizens of Vondium could do, and in half the time, by Vox!

That made it my turn to hide my face in the wine cup.

Presently I asked about Korf Aighos of the Blue Mountain Boys.

Filbarrka roared out a belly-laugh.

“The old Korf! Why, he’s strung up so many damned flutsmen he could build a hedge with them. No mercenary ventures into the Blue Mountains these days.”

“Does he send men to assist you down here on the plain?”

“Aye, oh, aye. We strap everything down, then, and chain and padlock it all triple-tight.”

Great reivers, the Blue Mountain Boys. Only because they shared a common fealty to Delia prevented the Blue Mountain Boys and the Filbarrkians of the plains from being at each other’s throats as once they had to their mutual loss and benefit.

“And the Black Mountains? Kov Inch—?”

“Not a word. The Black Mountains remain as impregnable to the invaders as the Blue. But they are hard-pressed by that rast up north of them, Kov Layco Jhansi.”

“And east, too,” I said. “In Falinur.”

“And, over the river, the black and whites, may their eyeballs fall out.”

“Amen,” I said, companionably, and drank, and we chatted in this polite way a little longer.

At last, judging the moment ripe, I proposed to Nazab Filbarrka that the Blue Mountain Boys be invited to contribute a component of the zorca force he would form. They might be infantry, archers, axemen, to fight in the intervals — anything, in my view, just so long as I could get their ferocious fighting ability put to use in the coming struggle.

“And if we can get word to the Black Mountain Men, them too.”

The threat posed by raids by the Racters over the border into the Black Mountains was serious; but the greater menace drew swiftly on us with those infernal Pypor-worshiping cramphs of clansmen and their voves from Segesthes. The Black Mountains must strip much of their own strength away, if we could reach them, to face Zankov. These are the hateful decisions emperors have to make every day before breakfast.

For a brief treacherous moment my thoughts dwelled on Drak and his fortunes in Faol among the Manhounds.

Filbarrka nodded in his enthusiastic fashion. “The great two-handed Sword of War of the Blue Mountains will serve excellently once I have broken up the main mass. I know they regained their pride in the weapon.” He cocked an eye at me, a knowing eye. “There was this business of you and the shorgortz, majister, as I recall.”

“Aye,” I said. “And the Sword of War was blunt.”

“Against the Racters and Jhansi, and now these vovemen, the great Swords of War will be sharp.”

“By Zim-Zair!” I said. “Yes!”

Filbarrka began to expatiate on the methods and equipment he would use and need. “I am prejudiced toward comfort in the shape of a four-legged animal, and am convinced that in spite of apparent lessons to the contrary, zorca cavalry can successfully fight those mounted on heavier animals.” He rubbed his fingers together, happily planning cunning tactics and stratagems. “Weapons will be a slender lance, twelve feet long, for a start, until we see how the men behave and the weapons serve. A number of lead-weighted and feathered throwing darts with broad barbed heads will be kept in a case at the saddle.”

“And a striking weapon, Nazab?”

“From a nimble zorca curveting about against an oaf astride a lumbering vove? Oh, a mace. A heavy, flanged head mace. Hit the fellow anywhere with that, and one of the flanges will bite in and do his business for him.”

“Very pretty. These weapons can be built for you in Vondium, together with such harness as you require.”

“Excellent, excellent!”

“And you will leave sufficient forces here to contain the confounded mercenaries.”

“I will. But it will be a task to choose who is to go and who to stay.”

“That’s why you are a Nazab.”

“And you, majister, an emperor.”

Just because of that it was possible for me to introduce the subject of shields. Some of Filbarrka’s people emitted loud snorting noises of derision at this; but I noticed others who, sitting forward intently, marked what was said.

“Shields?” said Filbarrka. He entwined his fingers and bounced up and down on his seat. “Well, now... Yes. Yes, I have seen shields in action and, if we are to have them, I would favor a long triangular convex-section shield.”

Well, argument ensued. In the end we agreed that the suggestions put forward by Filbarrka would be acted on to the best of our ability. The arsenals in Vondium had been instructed in the best way of manufacturing shields, and I guaranteed to supply the articles requested.