Allies of Antares (24 page)

We were seriously short of cavalry. This is inevitable as wars progress, the toll of saddle animals — whether of the land or flying variety — cannot easily be made up within the normal spans of birth and growth. Animals had been imported, and we had a number of formations of superb quality. Many were the crack cavalry regiments, however, mounted on beasts of indifferent quality, and presenting in many cases spectacles so cruelly ludicrous I will forbear to mention them.

This was one very good reason why Mileon Ristemer’s thundering great thomplods were entertained as serious war weapons. We’d armored the huge perambulating haystacks as well as we could against darts and stones. Their castles towered, stuffed with archers, and fleet-footed light infantry ran alongside, ready to guide and assist and to drive off any enemy two-handed swordsmen or axemen who tried to chop the thomplods’ twelve legs off.

Vad Garnath, who was here and who had exerted much of his old authority to reassert his position, proved most scathing about our famous thomplods. His relationship with King Telmont had undergone a change. Telmont was no longer so much in the background; but he had the sense to leave the handling of his army to Garnath. No one of his officers mentioned the scene in which Garnath had bowed to the will of his mercenaries; but some surprise was evinced by those hardened professionals, as by his Hamalian regiments, that Jak the Nose was other than he had claimed.

Garnath, swelling up again now that he felt himself back in command, said: “Those stupid beasts will frighten my cavalry with their stink! Keep them away!”

Mileon, quietly, said: “The thomplods are doused down with a mixture that cuts their offensive smell. When we attack, the ointment will be washed off. It will be the damned Shanks’ cavalry that will panic.”

Well, I said, but to myself, we all devoutly hope so.

Being an emperor, as I have remarked, is often a wearisome burden; but there are compensations. One was that I could gallop about freely, with a small troop of 1ESW at my back, to poke my nose into any and everything that went forward. I asked after Lobur the Dagger and Telmont’s people informed me that Lobur had disappeared after that fraught night. I thought I knew the Dagger enough to know he would turn up again in his own good time. Rees commanded a brigade of totrix cavalry. He did not know it; but that was my doing, a word in Tyfar’s ear had performed the trick. Chido, who was a Chuktar, having no saddle flyers, opted to ride with Rees this day. Because we were on his land he had brought with him a contingent of his own people. These were not soldiers; they were, if such a thing be possible, a willing levy. That they were anxious to kick the Shanks out was an advantage, but not everyone on Kregen is a fighter and I hoped Chido could keep them out of mischief.

Back along our trail lay piles of chains and stakes. I’d told Nedfar, firmly, that I could not fight in any army where poor devils of levies were chained up and stapled to the ground. He’d agreed. If our masses of spear- and shield-armed levies ran off, they would do what everyone expected them to do, and so morale would, instead of being depressed, rise with a fresh resolve. That was the theory.

We outnumbered the Shanks by something like three to two. I would have preferred to have been twice as strong. The Shanks were ferocious fighters and we would be facing the sternest struggle yet.

Nath Karidge listened when I spoke to him. He was kitted out in full fighting fig, and looked magnificent. “I have to say to you, Nath, that you will—” I saw his face.

He nodded. “I know, majister. And you know I know. But the regiment will fight. We are too short of cavalry for anything else.”

“Choose your best squadron. I know I ask a hard task of you, but—” Again I stopped. This time he looked highly devious.

“The Princess Majestrix has told me that she will ride with the empress today.”

I came quiveringly alert. “I don’t like the sound of that!” I was highly suspicious. “The pair of — Look, Nath, if they start pushing forward and get their necks — well—”

“I know, majister. It will be the best squadron.”

“I’d like to chain ’em down for this kind of thing like poor damned levies. Only, being women, they would take exception to that in a quite different fashion. The Sisters of the Rose! Be thankful your Cissy doesn’t belong.”

He smiled. “Cissy is a member of the Sisters of Opaz Munificent — I think that’s the name. Secretive, these ladies.”

“Agreed. I wish you well, Nath. May Opaz go with you.”

“May the Light of the Invisible Twins shine upon you.”

So, feeling that ticklish itch where Delia and danger are concerned, I rode on. I’d speak to her most firmly before the battle, and she would do exactly as she wanted to do afterward.

Another itch bothered me. I could give the greetings and the good wishes to my comrades, and feel free with them before the possibility of death claimed us all. But Rees and Chido? I just could not go into battle without talking to them. So, foolishly, of course, if you consider I was supposed to be an emperor and about to command an army in a crucial battle, I went off to the line of chiefs’ tents and told Naghan ti Lodkwara, who happened by rotation to command the duty squadron, to hold fast. Korero the Shield would ride at my back. Cleitar the Smith would carry my standard, and Ortyg the Tresh the flag of Vallia. Volodu the Lungs would be the trumpeter. Targon the Tapster, Uthnior Chavonthjid and many another famed kampeon was there, ready to ride into the worst Herrelldrin Hell at my back.

When I left the tent no one saw me and I exited under a sodsheet at the rear. On my face the foolish smiling features of Hamun ham Farthytu were plastered in that special way I had of screwing them up ready for action. Rees and Chido would know me, for sure.

Borrowing the zorca belonging to Deft-Fingered Minch, the bearded, crusty kampeon who ran my field quarters, I cantered off into the suns shine. Knowing where every unit was stationed was something I had to know — largely because I’d argued like stink in council with the other notables over the placing of the various formations — and so I soon found myself riding up to the knot of officers at the head of Rees’s brigade of totrix cavalry. To their side Chido’s men stood in raggedy lines.

Well, Rees looked magnificent, and Chido looked — well, this martial figure was dear chinless Chido; but how he had changed!

They saw me.

Now, we had not seen each other for a very long time. I had spotted these two in the Eye of the World, and they had not known I was there. So, now, jaws dropped, eyes bulged, greetings fairly frothed. By Krun! But it was good!

They wanted to know everything. I spun them a yarn and said I was committed to another part of the battle line; but, afterwards! We agreed to a rendezvous at one of our favorite taverns of the Sacred Quarter in Ruathytu. We wished one another well. This moment before impending battle was worth a very great deal to me.

Rees’s daughter, the golden lion-maid Saffi, thrived, and was still not married but was dogged by a string of suitors a dwabur long. And his son, Roban, was now a powerful paktun, driven overseas through his father’s misfortunes.

“But he’s coming back, Hamun! He’s never forgotten that you once gave him a left-hand dagger.”

“That was the day he became a man.”

Chido broke in, for that was the day Rees’s eldest son, Reesnik, had been murdered.

Chido was married, with two sets of twins, and I was overjoyed for him and we promised great reunions. Then I wished them well, consigning them to the care of Opaz and Krun, and turned away. Despite the risks, despite the dereliction of an emperor’s duty, that had been necessary and worthwhile.

And, anyway, I only just got back in time, for Deft-Fingered Minch’s personal zorca was being pressed into service with one of our cavalry regiments.

Back again in the brave old scarlet, my weapons slung about me, I stepped out of the front of the tent. If only all the disguises and stratagems I had played on Kregen worked as well!

The name of Garnath had cropped up, to be dismissed. Chido’s glance had warned me. But Rees, like a sleeping volcano, had not forgotten. How could any father?

Trumpets pealed. Flags flew. It was necessary for me to ride along the ranks of my men, as the other chiefs displayed themselves before their contingents. Religious ceremonies of many kinds were solemnly performed, and men committed themselves to the protection and mercy of their own deities and spirits.

The time approached.

These spiritual inquiries of the multitude of Kregan deities followed the more material inquiries of the Todalpheme, the wise men who monitored the movements of heavenly bodies and the surge and sweep of the tides. The Tides of Kregen can be fierce and savage beyond understanding — as you know. We had established from the Akhram that we need have no fear of a sudden surprise tide sweeping us away; the water was in balance between the attractions of moons and suns and we could expect a rise of a couple of feet only. Where we intended to fight lay smooth and level and here the tides could sweep in for twenty miles at speeds that would outrun a galloping zorca.

Delia said to me as I patted Snufflenose’s muzzle, “You will not ride him today, will you, Dray?”

“I thought—”

“Ride Blastyoureyes.”

Blastyoureyes was a nik-vove, a shining chestnut, with eight powerful legs and a body to match in weight and speed. He would carry me until he dropped dead. “Very well. And you?”

She laughed. “I ride with Nath Karidge—”

“I see. Then, my heart, mind you keep out of—” I stopped. I breathed in. Then I said, “Take care.”

“There is too much in the world to let it go for a foolishness.”

She wore armor, mesh and plate cunningly matched, and a scarlet military cape, and she carried weapons. Weapons, I mean, of edged and pointed steel. She would ride Yzovult, a splendid chestnut, of the same glorious coloring as Blastyoureyes.

But, in the whole wide world of Kregen and the no less extraordinary world of Earth, there was not a single solitary soul who could match my Delia.

So, simply, we kissed, and she jingled off to ride alongside Chuktar Nath at the head of the elite squadron of the EDLG and I swung my nik-vove and headed off for headquarters. I had words for Nedfar and Tyfar, and for Garnath, too, if he would listen.

As I jumped off Blastyoureyes and handed him over to orderlies of the staff lines I did not know, Seg walked across. His face looked black. “Well, my old dom, and they’ve gone and done it. Rather, they have gone and not done it.”

His fey blue eyes held danger signals. He scowled.

“They have given the vaward to young Tyfar.”

Seg Segutorio, in battles in which I commanded, habitually took the vaward. He would take over total command if necessary — had done so, at Kochwold — and he was a man who knew how to sweep a front clean.

“I do not command, Seg, but — and listen! — I am glad.”

“Glad for your Tyfar, I suppose.”

“If you get maudlin moody you’ll be no use! No, glad because it leaves you free to handle all the Vallian forces. Unless you would prefer to handle the Djangs? It is up to you; but I will not command the two together, for the plans call for—”

“I know! Yes, yes! Well, if it is all the same to you, I shall be honored to command the Vallians. By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom, honor it truly is.”

“Good.”

“Mind you, the thought of your four-armed Djangs raging into battle tempts a fellow, tempts him direly...”

“You’ve chosen to command the Vallians, and it’s too late. I’ll take the Djangs. And we’ll see who is first to their Great Standard.”

“What, that floating fish thing? Sooner burn the thing.”

“It means as much to them as the flag of Vallia to us—”

“Not as much, I’ll wager, as your personal standard, Old Superb!”

The scarlet flag, the yellow cross on the scarlet field, my battle flag that fighting men call Old Superb! Well, Cleitar the Standard carried that this day.

That thought made me say, “I’d like to keep the duty squadron of 1ESW if you don’t mind.”

Now Seg is a fey, wild and reckless fellow; he is also shrewd and practical, not to say cunning. Handing him command of the Vallians meant, since I used the Guard as a division of the army, handing command of that elite unit over, also. So now he said, “Trade me one of your best Djangs for every man you keep out of 1ESW, and you’re on.”

“Ingrate!”

“Credulous!”

“Quidang, then, Seg. One for one of the best for the best.”

Trumpets battered golden notes into the bright sky, for the suns had not stopped still while we maneuvered and mustered under our banners and talked and shouted, swore and prayed, and tried to ignore the fears within us. Flutduin patrols came fleeting back to our part of the line, as mirvols and fluttrells to the Hamalese. The Hyrklese fought with us this day.

“They move! They move!”

So we were off.

A very tame beginning, I was thinking, as Seg wheeled away, not in his usual fashion to the vaward, but to command all the chivalry and pride of Vallia.

My Djangs set up a racket when I cantered up. If sheer noise could win battles, we’d won all-four-hands-each down.

Anticipating this outcome, I wore a flaunting great scarf of orange and gray, the colors of Djanduin, and a Jiktar chosen by lot for the highest honor carried the sacred banner of Djanduin. Looking at the glowing orange and gray and the embroidery and gold bullion, tassels and thread alike glittering, I became aware of Ortyg the Tresh with the Vallian Union flag. I looked away. I couldn’t summon the hardness of heart to send him away after Seg — and there were enough Vallian flags waving over the ranks of the army, the files of the Phalanx.

So, in response to the shouts, we, too, moved forward.

The sight uplifted the emotions. Every person of Paz — except for those few misguided traitors we now believed to exist — detested, hated and feared the Shanks. But, these Fishheads were brave, clever and resourceful men who swarmed up out of their own homelands, locations unknown to us, driven by impulses not too far different from those animating any nomadic clansman, any glory-seeking warrior. Anathema to us; Shanks, Fish-heads, were men still. Pundhri the Serene had preached on this subject, taking as his text the commandments of life developed by a long-dead Pachak. These unwanted thoughts of a rational world where men did not fight and slay other men intruded upon the stern resolve so vital to survival this day.