fought at once or else they fell to pieces.
'They don't sound likely to get far, sir,' said Balaklesh, who commanded the Lapan contingent. 'Why not simply go on to Kabin and leave them to fall apart in the rains?'
As is often the way, the wrong advice immediately cleared Gel-Ethlin's mind and showed him what had to be done.
'No, that wouldn't do. They'd wander about for months, parties of brigands, murdering and looting. No village would be safe and in the end another army would have to be sent to hunt them down. Do you all believe the boy's telling no more than the truth?' They nodded. .'Then we must destroy them at once, or the villages will be saying that a Beklan army fell down on its job. And we must reach them before they get down the hill-road from Gelt and out on the plain – partly to stop them looting and partly because once they're on the plain they may go anywhere. We might lose track of them altogether and the men are in no state to go marching about in pursuit. There's even less time to be lost now than if we were going to Kabin. Kapparah, hang on to the lad; we'll need him as a guide. You'd all better go and tell your men that we've got to get to the hills by the afternoon. Balaklesh, you take a hundred reliable spearmen and start at once. Find us a good defensive position in the foothills, send back a guide and then push on and try to find out what the Ortelgans are doing.'
Within an hour the sky had clouded over from one horizon to the other and the west wind was blowing steadily. The red dust filled the soldiers' eyes, ears and nostrils and mingled grittily, beneath their clothes, with the sweat of their bodies. They marched with cloths or leather bound over mouths and noses, continually screwing up their eyes, unable to see the hills ahead, each company following that in front through the thick helter-skelter of dust which piled itself like snow along the windward sides of rocks, of banks, of the few sparse trees and huts along the way – and of men. It got into the rations and even into the wine-skins. Gel-Ethlin marched behind the column on the leeward flank, whence he could check the stragglers and keep them in some sort of order. After two hours he called a halt and re-formed the column in echelon, so that when they set out again each company was marching downwind of that immediately behind it. This, however, did little to relieve their discomfort, which was due less to the dust they raised themselves than to the storm blowing over the whole plain. Their pace diminished and it was not until a good three hours after noon that the leading company reached the edge of the plain and, having reconnoitred half a mile in either direction, found the road to Gelt where it wound up through the myrtle and cypress groves on the lower slopes.
About a thousand feet above the plain the road reached a level, green spot where the ghost of a waterfall trickled down into a rock-pool; and here, as they came up, the successive companies fell out, drank and lay down in the grass. Looking back, they could see the dust-storm on the plain below and their spirits rose to think that at least one misery was left behind. Gel-Ethlin, grudging the delay, urged his officers to get them on their feet again. The afternoon had set in dark and the wind over the plain was dropping. They stumbled on wearily, their footsteps, the clink of their arms and the occasional shouts of orders echoing from the crags about them.
It was not long before they came to a narrow gorge, where two officers of the advance party were awaiting them. Balaklesh, the officers reported, had found an excellent defensive position about a mile further up the road, beyond the mouth of the gorge, and his scouts had been out ahead of it for more than an hour. Gel-Ethlin went forward to meet him and see the position for himself. It was very much the sort of thing he had had in mind, an upland plateau about half a mile wide, with certain features favourable to disciplined troops able to keep ranks and stand their ground. Ahead, to the north, the road came curving steeply downhill round a wooded shoulder. On the right flank was thick forest and on the left a ravine. Through this bottleneck the advancing enemy must needs come. At the foot of the shoulder the ground became open and rose gently, among scattered crags and bushes, to a crest over which the road passed before entering the gorge. Balaklesh had chosen well. With the crags as natural defensive points and the slope in their favour, troops in position would take a great deal of dislodging and it would be extremely difficult for the enemy to fight their way as far as the crest. Yet unless they did so they could not hope to pursue their march down to the plain.
Gel-Ethlin drew up his line on the open slope, with the road running at right-angles through his centre. There would be no need for his weary men to break ranks or advance until the enemy had shattered themselves against his front.
Under the still thickening clouds, the lowest vapours of which were swirling close above them, they waited on through the clammy, twilit afternoon. From time to time there were rolls of thunder and once lightning struck in the ravine half a mile away, leaving a long, red streak like a weal down the grey rock. Somehow the men had got wind of the magic bear. The Yeldashay spearmen had already produced a doggerel ballad about its hyperbolical (and increasingly ribald) exploits; while at the other end of the line some regimental buffoon seized his chance, capering and growling in an old ox-hide, with arrow-heads for claws on his fingers' ends.
At last Gel-Ethlin, from his command post on the road half-way down the slope, caught sight of the scouts returning down the hill among the trees. Balaklesh, running, reached him quickly. They had, he reported, come very suddenly upon the Ortelgans, who were advancing so fast that they themselves, already tired, had barely been able to get back ahead of them. As he spoke, Gel-Ethlin and those about him could hear, from the woods above, the growing hubbub and clatter of the approaching rabble. With a last word about the supreme importance of not breaking ranks until ordered, he dismissed his officers to their posts.
Waiting, he heard drops of rain beating on his helmet but at first could feel none on his outstretched hand. Then, filling all the distance, an undulating gauze of rain came billowing over the edge of the ravine from the left. A moment later the view below became blurred and a kind of growling sigh rose from the lines of soldiers on either side. Gel-Ethlin took half-a-dozen steps forward, as though to see better through the moving mist of rain. As he did so a band of shaggy-haired men, half-savage in appearance and carrying various weapons, came tramping together round the curve of the road below and stopped dead at the sight of the Beklan army confronting them.
21 The Passes of Gelt
To burn Gelt had been no part of Ta-Kominion's intention. Nor could he find out who had done it, each of the barons denying all knowledge of how or where the fire had begun. Ta-Kominion, with his personal followers, had readied the wretched little square in the centre of the town to find two sides already ablaze, the body of the chief lying with a spear in the back and a crowd of Ortelgans looting and drinking. He and Zelda, with a handful of the steadier men, beat some sort of order into them and – there being no water in the place except what could be scooped from two wells and one shrunken mountain-brook – checked the fire by breaking up the huts down-wind and dragging away the posts and straw. It was Zelda who pointed out that at all costs they must prevent any of the townspeople from carrying the news down to the plain. Guards were set on all roads and paths leading out of the town, while a young man named Jurit, to whom Ta-Kominion had that morning given Fassel-Hasta's command, led a reconnoitring force down the steep southward road to find out what lay before them.
Ta-Kominion sat on a bench in one of the dim, fly-buzzing huts, trying to convince four or five frightened, speechless town elders that he meant them no harm. From time to time he broke off, frowning and groping for words as the walls swam before his eyes and the sounds from outside rose and fell in his cars like talk from beyond a door continually opening and closing. He moved restlessly, feeling as though his body were wrapped in stiff ox- hides. His wounded forearm throbbed and there was a tender swelling in his armpit. Opening his eyes, he saw the faces of the old men staring at him, full of wary curiosity.
He spoke of Lord Shardik, of the revealed destiny of Ortelga and the sure defeat of Bekla, and saw the dull disbelief and fear of reprisal and death which they could not keep from their eyes. At last one of them, shrewder perhaps than the rest, who must have been calculating the probable effect of what it had occurred to him to say, replied by telling him of the northern army of patrol under General Santil-ke-Erketlis which, if he were not mistaken – as well he might be, he added hastily, his cunning peasant's face assuming an expression of humility and deference – was due at this time to cross the plain below on its circuit to Kabin and beyond. Did the young lord mean to fight that army or would he seek to avoid it? Either way, it seemed best not to remain in Gelt, for the rains were due, were they not, and – he broke off, acting the part of one who knew his place and would not presume to advise the commander of so fine an army.
Ta-Kominion thanked him gravely, affecting not to be aware that it mattered little to those standing before him whether he went forward or back, so long as he left Gelt If the old man had meant to frighten him, he had
