your valiant and daring prince, for me, plain Dray Prescot, the doubts and premonitions of disaster remained. Weak, of course; but in my usual fashion I put a tough face on my ugly old beakhead and concealed the torture and turmoil in my head from my comrades.
Then an event occurred which the doubter would take merely as a trifle from a Fairy Story. One of the new regiments of zorca archers was loading. The animals were being led up the gangplanks, and the cavalrymen were in the usual lather, yelling, pushing, pulling, cajoling the zorcas into the ship. A commotion greater than usual began as I cantered by. I was riding Fango, a fine bay zorca, who had lost a hand-breadth of his spiral horn at some time in his career. The imperial stables had fashioned a new horn tip for him from Chemnite ivory, neatly banded with gold. Grumbleknees and Snowy were having the day off.
“Catch him!” The shouts spurted up. “Grab the beast!”
Cavalrymen went spinning every which way, their red uniforms dusty and stained already. A monstrous black shape reared high, hooves lashing, nostrils crimson, seeming to breathe fire. His eyes glittered in the light of the suns. Down he came, roaring down the ramp, scattering folk like ninepins. Straight up to me he galloped, horn up, tail flying, mane splendid. Fango backed off, alarmed, thinking he was being attacked.
“Majister!” They were yelling. “The emperor is in danger from a wild beast! Shoot the zorca down!”
“Hold!” I bellowed. I really let go a shout that rattled the teeth in their heads. I gentled Fango and as the huge black zorca crashed alongside I laid a hand on his head.
“Shadow!”
And Shadow threw up his head and whinnied, glorious in his shining splendor. Shadow… A great-hearted zorca with whom I had built a special relationship of trust and affection, and whom I had thought lost in Vondium, and yet, and yet… Always I had known we would meet again. That was quickly sorted out. I was told Shadow had been found in Vond, dwaburs away from Vondium, and in our eternal quest for quality zorcas had been brought into the army. He had always given trouble, being highly independent-minded. The Jiktar to whom he had been issued sighed with relief when I said, “He is my zorca, Jiktar.” I dismounted. “Take Fango. He is a first-class animal and you will joy in him.”
“Quidang, majister!”
The saddles were swiftly changed and I stuck my boot into the stirrup and mounted up on Shadow. He showed his pleasure. We had been through many adventures together; we would go through many more. But in the heady moment of reunion all those perils could wait.
Then another little crisis developed. Long lines of yellow-clad men marched toward the gangplanks. I frowned.
“Larghos the Sko-Handed!” I bellowed.
Larghos came over, beaming. His shoulder wings stuck out far more than regulations allowed. He looked fit and tough.
“Where, Larghos, do you think you are going with those coys?” A coy is a recruit, a greenhorn.
“Coys, majister! Are not they damned assassins? They will fight! By Vox! I will see to that!”
I sighed. What would you do with these fellows?
Nath the Knife had sent us an initial seven hundred young men. They could fight, of course. But they weren’t swods.
Larghos saw my face. “You would not deny them the glory?”
About to break out into bitter invective against this stupid, shuddery, bloody idea of glory, I held my tongue. If our country was in the dire danger we all knew her to be, why should not these fine young men go off to fight? Why should they? Because it was their duty? Because they would be less than men if they did not? No — the reasons lay deeper than that…
Larghos’s slingers went on boarding. Drill the Eye shouted at his bowmen to carry on and rolled over, spluttering, to join his comrade. When Clardo the Clis, his scar burning, nudged his zorca across, I knew I was beaten.
“You are taking the Sword Watch,” pointed out Clardo, with consummate cunning. “They are coys, also-”
“Not quite,” I said.
“Nor neither are we!”
“Very well. You’ll have to skirmish forward. Your drill is not up to formed standards yet.”
“Aye, majister. We’ll skirmish the zigging Hamalian tripes out!”
So that was settled. The Emperor’s Yellow Jackets, the EYJ, joined the Second Regiment of the Emperor’s Sword Watch, the 2ESW, aboard the flying ships. Both men and swods would be created out of the lads embarking. That is life.
The return of the vollers enabled me to send off part of a regiment of totrix heavies. They would still arrive ahead of the sailing fliers. Other units went up to the northwest. Regular reports told me Ovalia was filling up, and the locals were helping with energy.
Consigning the rest of the paperwork to Enevon, confiding the city once again to Naghan Strandar and the Presidio, I collected the last of the troops we were taking and with Turko stepped aboard the voller, observing the fantamyrrh, and took off for Ovalia and destiny.
Chapter twenty
The messenger stood before me in the Tower of Avoxdon in Ovalia where I had set up headquarters. His flying leathers were stained and travel worn. He looked exhausted. But before he would allow himself to sit down, this merker would deliver his message from Drak.
“The armies of the Prince Majister are fully committed. He has sent a number of provisional regiments to Vondium, mostly walking wounded and invalids. A brigade of churgurs is on the way to you and is following me within a day.”
Instead of saying anything I indicated the chair and the merker sat with a flummox. His bird was being cared for by the flutswods of my single squadron of flutduins. I stared at him.
“And cavalry?”
“Three squadrons of totrix javelinmen.”
We were short of cavalry, of the land and of the aerial kind. Well, all commanders are always short of cavalry, unless they be barbarian chieftains of a savage host of jutmen, as admirals are always short of frigates. Most of the force sent by Jhansi on this raid into our land consisted of jutmen; many were cavalry, some were mounted infantry riding a variety of animals. The balance of his infantry was carried in airboats. He had mirvols, powerful flying animals, with experienced flutswods to fly them, as his aerial cavalry component. Kapt Hangrol ham Thanoth commanded a powerful and fast-moving force. We had been operating out of Ovalia for three days now and our initial dispositions had been made. As I sat brooding on this travel-weary merker I thought back to that smart little dust-up Prince Tyfar, Quienyin and our comrades had gone through in the Humped Land. It all added up. Those damned swarthmen had ridden on, confidently, and we had enticed them and tricked them and dazzled them before we’d seen them off. What a fellow may do with half a dozen staunch comrades against superior numbers, surely the same fellow could do with a small army against a larger?
Sipping the wine poured by Deft-Fingered Minch, a crusty, bearded veteran who ran my field quarters, the merker answered questions and conveyed news. Kov Seg Segutorio fought in the vaward, as usual, and commanded the Second Army. His daughter had visited him and gone on to see Prince Drak, commanding the First Army. This numbering of armies was new to me, and, to my ears, smacked of magniloquence. The Presidio had dished out the numbers, following Drak’s instructions. Kov Vodun Alloran had marched into the West Country with the Fifth Army. Other numbered armies guarded our other provinces and frontiers. I gathered my little lot were the Eighth Army. All that flummery meant nothing, of course. You could call yourselves what you liked; what counted was your strength and tenacity, physical and moral.
The merker, he was a Hikdar and his name was Ortyg Lovin, an honored name in Vallia, went on with his
