the Miglas. Now they sought to maintain their conquest. With more Miglas like Med Neemusbane and Hamp, I judged, the task I had considered almost insuperable might have a solution that was one I could accept. We reached the open air and climbed back through the tunneled stair and so came out into the ruins. The Maiden with the Many Smiles shone down on us. We made our surreptitious way back to the tavern leaning so crazily on the bank of the River Magan.
If they did so, of course, every man of the patrol would be dead. But that would only stir up fresh trouble.
The tangled skein of politics in Havilfar, and the delicate balances of power, I found fascinating. The Canops had been able to carry out their conquest of Migla, their own island of Canopdrin in the Shrouded Sea being made uninhabitable by the volcanic activity there, because no one wished to fight them on this issue. The Canops were no more powerful now than they had been. This was not an empire-building conquest. On the other hand, there were many countries around the Shrouded Sea which would welcome the downfall of the iron men from Canopdrin. Their army discipline and organization, I discovered, was not peculiar to them, or remarkably exceptional. The Canoptic army was a fair representative war machine of most countries of Havilfar.
Against that war machine we must pit only religious-minded halflings with vosk-hunting experience. In the normal course of events we could not hope to win; but I held ever in my mind what had been accomplished with the slaves and workers of the warrens of Magdag, and I did not lose hope. I had no right to lose hope, for that would have displeased the Star Lords, and my overriding duty was to stay on Kregen — no matter how.
A camp was established in the back hills of Migla and here collected disaffected halflings prepared to fight. They came in, in small numbers; but as the message was spread by word of mouth throughout the land that both Mog and her brother Mag were returned the stream of recruits thickened. The full rites of Migshaanu were celebrated every sixth day, as was proper on Kregen, and due observances were restored every day also.
I was kept very busy.
A small cadre of dedicated Miglas gathered about Turko and me. Hamp, as one of the better potential officers, and Med also, could be trusted to carry out orders faithfully. I spelled out various of the difficulties to them as we watched Miglas straggling to stay in line and advance shoulder to shoulder over the slope of a hill.
“We face a number of problems,” I told them. “One is the absolute absence of hand-to-hand fighting experience here. Not only are you deficient in the art, you do not even have the weapons.”
“I have this,” said Med, ripping out his big knifelike scramasax. “My veknis has slit many a vosk throat
— aye! And a neemu’s also, into the bargain.”
They solemnly nodded their heads, these ugly little Miglas.
“Aye, Med Neemusbane, you speak the truth.”
Whereat Med lowered his head, and looked away, ashamed of thus boasting of his prowess and calling attention to the deed for which he was both famed and named.
“And,” I said cuttingly, “what of your little veknis against a real sword? Answer me that!”
I was harsh about his scramasax, for that Saxon weapon is a knife built like a sword, and is very ugly and deadly, although of beautiful shape. But a thraxter, the cut-and-thrust sword of Havilfar, would deal with the veknis with ease.
They shuffled their feet and the Miglas in the line advancing up the hill weaved about like those tendrils sprouting from that horrific syatra in the tunnels beneath Mungul Sidrath. I looked up. At least, the Suns of Scorpio still shone.
“We need shields, and bows, and we need the skills to use them.”
Here there were no masses of slave workers skilled in all manner of arts and crafts, as there had been in the warrens of Magdag, as ready to produce a bow or a shield as to produce a statue or a decoration for the megaliths of the overlords.
Mog waved her arms. She insisted on attending every planning meeting, and this was her right, I suppose.
“We must collect all the money we can. All the deldys my people will give — aye, and more. Then we can hire mercenaries. I am told Rapas are very good, for I do not think we could afford to hire Chuliks. There is your answer.”
They could do this, of course.
“You can do this,” I said. “But who holds the treasury of Migla now? Who controls the state chest in Mungul Sidrath? Can you outbid the Canops in hiring soldiers? For every Rapa you hired they would hire two Chuliks. And, I tell you, for I know these things, no mercenary likes to be hired to fight for a side so obviously doomed to lose.”
That, I realized at once, had not only been a tactless thing to say, it had been also offensive. I went on bluntly and offensively: “Until you learn to fight for yourselves, you will not regain your own country.”
“We will fight!” yelled Med Neemusbane. He jumped up, waving his stux. “We will fight!”
“Then learn, you wild neemu! Learn!”
Turko said, in the hush that followed, “If we fight and begin to win, will not the Canops then hire more mercenaries?”
“If they do that, good Turko, they admit defeat. Then, I would be happy to see contingents of Rapas and Brokelsh and Fristles landing in Yaman. For then we would be winning!”
One important fact I must make clear at this point is that I felt myself cut off here in halfling Migla. I was a Homo sapiens, as was Turko; apim. We were the only apim among all these halflings, people whom I would have dubbed, when I first moved among the races of Kregen, as beast-men. I knew a little better by this time. But the oppression of being stuck away here in this backwater of Havilfar, when all I really wanted to do lay across the Southern Ocean, filled me with a haziness as to my proper course for the immediate future. Building up an army seemed to me the only sensible course to follow. The army grew slowly, and shields were produced, and I hammered out a system of tactical combat that I felt would serve its purpose on the day of battle.
We had the advantage of numbers. But, had I been a Canop Chuktar commanding my brigade of regiments, I would have chuckled and in the old uncouth and savage way have said: “All the more targets for my fellows.”
As far as the numbers opposed to us were concerned, I was amused to notice how the oddly intricate mensuration of Kregen hampered estimates. Kregen measures in units of six and also in units of ten. In the ancient and misty past we here on this Earth used to measure in units of six; but the decimal system ousted that, and a last rearguard action was fought when shillings vanished and twelve pennies were no longer a unit. There were eighty men in a Canoptic pastang. Six pastangs formed a regiment. With ancillaries like the standard-bearers and the trumpeters and grooms and orderlies and cooks and others of the un-glamorous duty-men necessary in every army, there would be, I judged, something like five hundred and fifty men in a regiment. The commandant in Yaman held no less than twelve regiments, of crossbowmen and of footmen. With extras here, also — say between seven and eight thousand men. He had an air wing also, of which I knew nothing; tough aerial cavalry mounted on mirvols and not on fluttrells as I had previously thought. There was a ground cavalry force, riding totrixes and zorcas, and I had been told that here in Havilfar the half-vove also was used.
In addition there would be the Canop Air Service, flying vollers, those airboats which were at the time manufactured solely in certain of the countries of Havilfar.
All in all we faced a formidable fighting machine.
They hadn’t understood my reference to being glad to see contingents of mercenaries, and I had to explain that I meant that these would be mercenaries we hired, for then they would be happy to come to join the winning side for booty and glory.
I had for the moment discounted various Canoptic regiments stationed outside the capital city, for I meant to make the decisive struggle in and around Yaman itself. By the time those regiments scattered throughout Migla arrived they would march into a debacle and could easily be dispersed and captured. The air of impatience among the Miglas grew with every new bunch of arrivals. They were excellent spear-throwers. I told them what I wanted, what, indeed, I could see as their only chance.
“Shield-bearers will protect your flanks and your front and the stux-men must hurl as they have never hurled
