strength and his confidence. We lost men in skirmishes. I raged and grieved; but we went on with the words of Clardo the Clis to sustain us.
“If one man dies for what he believes in — would you deny him that right? We all chose to be here!”
The maneuvers were complicated and pretty. We kept to good cover, making the utmost use of woods and darkness. The pace told on us and the men grew lean and hungry. The quoffa-drawn wagons caught up with us from time to time and yielded provisions and provender. Brad the Berry disgorged an amazing quantity of first-class food from his wagons, the Hagli Bush Irregulars delighting in showing how well they could provide. And we played Kapt Hangrol and his army, and in one classic attack we cut off and destroyed four full regiments of the iron legions of Hamal. With them went a shrieking collection of Layco Jhansi’s hoodwinked adherents, spearmen, savage, almost barbaric fanatics. As a few miserable and shaking prisoners were interrogated, I reached the conclusion that Jhansi must be using sorcery to control and enflame these men. Only a few seasons ago, before the Time of Troubles, these same shrieking savages had been sober, industrious citizens of Vallia. It was not just civil war and all its attendant horrors that had brought this travesty into being.
“That rast Hangrol draws near,” said Turko, most cheerfully, on the day when the maps and the scouts’
reports showed the raiding army to be within a day’s march. All ideas of raiding farther into Orvendel had been abandoned by Layco Jhansi’s men. I could guess that Kapt Hangrol and Malervo Norgoth had been exchanging acrimonious words. That cheered me up, since I was a malignant sort of fellow. We had trailed the red rag and they were bedazzled and enflamed.
“Right, Turko — or should I say, Kov Turko?”
“And I say to you — do you wish to try a few falls?”
We laughed companionably together. For all the seriousness with which Turko took his new status as a kov, he, like my comrades and myself blessed or cursed with these noble titles, could see the ludicrousness, the pompous jackass nonsense, of putting too much store by rank and title. Estates, now
— ah! That was a different matter.
These intricate maneuvers were of absorbing interest. We pivoted so as to maintain the Tenth Kerchuri with its solid mass of pikes as our fulcrum. And, of course, the local folk of Orvendel were extremely severe on any raiders who fell into their clutches.
Absorbingly interesting or not, the purely maneuvering phase had to come to an end.
“You are right, Turko. Tomorrow should see them nicely positioned.”
“The spot you have chosen and worked them to is perfect. Now all that remains is for them to go in like idiot dermiflons, braying and charging full pelt.”
“I think they will. Empress Thyllis has sent men up here in a desperate attempt to recover her losses in Vallia. Hangrol knows his head is forfeit if he loses.”
My knowledge of mad Empress Thyllis encompassed her macabre Hall of Notor Zan where the wretches she deemed had failed her were thrown to the slavering fangs of her pet Manhounds.[8]
Everything was in order and to hand. The men sat around their campfires and a few songs lifted; but in the main they got their heads down and tried to sleep. I fancy that most of them did not, not being veterans. So the morning dawned. Palest rose and apple green, the Suns of Scorpio, Zim and Genodras, rose into a dappled sky. The air tanged with a morning bite. Food was eaten by those whose appetites remained. The final polish to weapons, the last adjustment to harness, the bilious shouts of the Deldars bellowing the men into their ranks — so we raggedy little bunch, so magniloquently styled the Eighth Army, fell in.
The lay of the land was simple and all important. Not being sufficiently strong to meet Hangrol in open battle, we must perforce make him attack piecemeal, which, being a skillful general, he would not do unless hoodwinked. The plain was here cut by a wide gash, the bed of an ancient stream long since lost to the Canals of Vallia. Vegetation clothed its flanks. Here were posted the archers. At the end of the depression the Tenth Kerchuri stood, formed, solid, a glittering array of crimson and bronze. They were withdrawn just enough to be out of sight of the distant end. Our cavalry waited my orders on the flanks. Scouts and skirmishers moved forward in clouds to deny the enemy clear observation. The churgurs waited just inboard of the archers. It was a simple arrangement to all seeming, and not a particularly military layout, either. I knew a fair old number of princes and generals who would blanch at the mere sight of the formations we adopted.
Our total aerial force went whirling off to put into effect the final dazzlement. Even the lumbering old weyver went, with a rascally gang of cutthroats concealed behind her low bulwarks and a dozen varters ready to spew out chunks of Ovalia’s fine street paving.
“You’ll never dupe all that cramph Hangrol’s aerial forces, Dray!” Turko rested his massive shield on his saddle. “By Morro the Muscle! We’ll have the hornets around our ears-”
“Difficult to say.” I spoke seriously, for this was a tactical and psychological problem. “If our fellows can draw off a goodly part, our archers can deal with the rest.”
“I just wish Seg was here,” said Turko, and gentled his zorca between his knees. By Zair! And didn’t I! And Inch, too, and all the others!
We watched the lads of the Tenth Kerchuri running back down the dry, ancient riverbed scattering their caltrops. If you question — if you condemn — the use of youngsters here, I sympathize. But they were born on Kregen, Vallians, and they burned to do what they could. The chevaux de frise were unloaded from the krahnik carts and carried forward ready to be run out where needed. I lifted in the stirrups to survey the scene. There was no fleet voller for me now to oversee the dispositions. Our men melted into the shadows of the bushes, and were still. A lazy breeze tufted the leaves, which was most useful and was taken by many men as a sign of the direct assistance we had from Opaz and Vox. Into that ravine trotted Jiktar Travok Ramplon’s regiment. The zorcas looked marvelous. The men had smartened themselves and their mounts up for the occasion, and wore their brightest uniforms. Red and gold glittered in the light. They rode forward and they suddenly seemed, despite their trim appearance and martial order, very small and lonely and isolated trotting up that dusty defile. They trotted on and the hooves of the zorcas glittered through the dust, the spiral horns jutted proudly, the tails switched impatiently. Each trooper held his bow in his left hand, straight down his left leg, and his right hand gripped the nocked arrow. Jogging along in the trot, guiding their mounts with knees and body movement and voice, the swods of the zorca bows rode forward.
At the far end of the defile appeared the scouts from Hangrol’s forces. Overhead a bunch of mirvols flew up ready to swoop down. I held my breath. You can see the tricky situation. Too soon and Hangrol would never follow. Too late, and that fine zorca regiment would be a mangled ruin. With faithful Fango between his knees, confident, exalted, Jiktar Ramplon judged it to a nicety. His men loosed at the mirvols. The flying animals swerved away, preferring to leave to the advance guard of land cavalry the sweeping away of this troublesome zorca unit. Remember, Ramplon had been baiting these adversaries for the past days. They had blood in their eye. The leading units of enemy zorcas simply let rip a yell of rage and anger and charged like leems. Jiktar Ramplon gave his orders, his trumpeter blew, the regiment pivoted and pulled back, building up their speed into a fine, free gallop. Around that kink in the defile Ramplon sent on his regiment, for he had chosen to ride last, for which I marked him. He had the Twenty-seventh Regiment of zorca archers. They raced around that bend, and the following cavalry roared around after them. Dust smoked into the air. When the pursuing cavalry were out of sight of their following main body, our archers let fly. Ramplon’s men hauled up, skidding, turned, and those bows came up and showered shafts into the abruptly huddled, terror-stricken mass. Shot to pieces, the enemy zorcas tried to flee back, and ran full tilt into a wall of steel that closed as though on a hinge across the defile. The Tenth Kerchuri received the fleeing cavalry as though they received a charge. Perhaps half a dozen zorcamen survived to scramble around the edges and run for it
— and each one of that half-dozen was brought down by a marksman.
The noise was such, I hoped, as to convince Hangrol that his advance cavalry had successfully chased off the annoying hornets who had been stinging him so unmercifully. The first elements of his main body came into sight, and I judged that Hangrol did think so. Apart from those early mirvols, there was no sign of his aerial support.
I looked back to where the 2ESW and the EYJ lay waiting in the runnels in the ground. All our men waited in concealment. Hangrol’s forces advanced, led by more cavalry, with bunches of irregulars following, and backed by regiments of the iron legions of Hamal. I counted quickly. Ten regiments… They were the hard nut we had to crack. Like the other troops in Hangrol’s force, the Hamalese swods were mounted up; they would dismount to go into action.
The moment approached and nothing was going to stop it now.
