Thus Guest Gulkan's thousand spears marched south for three days, with each and every common soldier earnestly thinking the army bound for Favanosin, and with every straggler and deserter thinking likewise.
Each night the army camped, and on dawn on the fourth day the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin pronounced them sufficiently south to begin to move in a great arc widdershins. The Swelaway Sea was their announced destination, for Sken-Pitilkin did not as yet think it wise to trust the common soldiers with the full truth.
As the army launched itself into this arc, it moved slowly at first, deploying a strong rearguard to prevent straggling. The envanishment of armies is a great art, and one which requires patience, and planning, and meticulous attention to detail.
And in this the wizards were triumphant.
Though Guest was a novice in war, fit for nothing more complicated than the brightsword clash of blade against blade, Sken-Pitilkin was learned in manoeuver; and, though long out of use, his skills remained to him. It is true that in the long-gone days of yore Sken-Pitilkin had lost more wars than he had won, but he had since refined his skills by dint of brooding over his errors, and made no mistakes on this occasion.
Once the force was far enough into its arc for stragglers to have no hope of betraying its intentions, Sken- Pitilkin had Guest Gulkan call his men together and brief them in depth. Their enthusiasm was roused by the prospect of attacking a baggage train and looting it, particularly as their own rations were down to something close to nothing.
So the force completed its arc, reaching the Yolantarath at a position which was, by Sken-Pitilkin's guestimate, something more than a hundred leagues to the east of Locontareth. If Sken-Pitilkin was right, then the Witchlord Onosh would now be somewhere to their west, advancing with all possible haste in the hope of catching Guest Gulkan before he could escape; and, again if Sken-Pitilkin was right, the Witchlord's baggage train would be some distance still to the east, loitering along in the wake of the army.
'One hopes you are right, cousin,' said Zozimus, surveying the broad and sluggish width of the Yolantarath, 'for we are going to look awfully foolish if you are wrong.'
'I am right, I know it,' said Sken-Pitilkin, knowing full well that looking foolish would be the least of their problems if he was wrong.
The Yolantarath lay wide and empty under the scrutiny of Guest Gulkan's forces. Guest sat in the sun and thought, trying to absorb the mind-boggling array of tactical and strategic devices to which he had been exposed in the last few days.
As a child growing up in Gendormargensis, Guest had thought of war as a matter of swordsmash and bloodspill, of raw courage and brute strength adventuring. His early forays into the mountains against bandits had helped secure him in this conviction. But by now Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus had opened up appalling vistas of complexity. He saw that the war story was but the surface glitter of the deep and dark-complexioned art of war, and that he in his youth knew virtually nothing of the full complexity of that art.
The Yolantarath lay wide and empty for a day. Then, at midmorning, the long and uneasy wait was broken when a convoy of barges came in sight. They were coming slowly downstream, heading toward Locontareth. This, by every presumption, was surely the Witchlord's baggage train. Sken-Pitilkin directed a couple of men to hail the barges.
'Say that the Witchlord Onosh is here,' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'Say that he wishes to see the captains of these barges. The barges themselves are to halt at the riverbank.'
This message was conveyed to the barges, which obeyed the order. The captains gathered in, which was entirely natural for them to do – for, as far as they were concerned, Guest Gulkan had been defeated and was running for the far horizon, so the territory through which they were venturing was safe and secure.
With the captains came Guest Gulkan's brothers, Morsh Bataar and Eljuk Zala, who had been left in nominal command of this baggage train.
'Guest!' said Eljuk, reacting in shocked surprise when he saw his brother.
Eljuk's lower lip trembled as vehemently as Rolf Thelemite's was wont to do. Guest half-expected saliva to dribble from Eljuk's mouth and flow down his chin, following the tracks of his purple birthmark. But the Weaponmaster's sadistic expectation was not to be gratified, for Eljuk was dry-mouthed with fear.
While Eljuk was near-paralysed by fear, the barge-captains were not. Those worthies grabbed for their weapons, but were overpowered.
'Guest,' said Morsh Bataar, standing unmoved amidst the confusion of the struggle.
'It is me,' said Guest, grandly. Then: 'Good to see you,
Morsh? How's the leg?'
'The leg serves its purpose,' said Morsh formally. 'But you?
What purpose do you serve?'
'The purpose of justice,' said Guest. 'I serve the purpose of a just manuring for Locontareth. I will be emperor, and spread my shit from Gendormargensis to the sea.'
'You are quite mad,' said Morsh. 'A dog has bitten you, and you're foaming at the mouth.'
'No, no,' said Guest. 'It's not me who was bitten, it was Glambrax, and anyway, he's not foaming either. He's still in Locontareth, or was – he was with us but deserted.'
'Then the dwarf has at least a little sense,' said Morsh.
'But you have none.'Guest took his brother's rebukes in good part, for Morsh Bataar was known to be slow in his wits, therefore it was only natural that he might be slow to appreciate the glories of Guest's life as a large- scale bandit.
In the best of good humor, Guest declared his brothers hostages, and declared the captains of the barges to be hostages as well. Then, finding out that Eljuk's new tutor was on one of the barges, he had the man hauled before him.
'What is your name?' said Guest.
'My name, young sir, is Eldegen Terzanagel.'
So spoke the tutor, a text-master whom Guest judged to be aged somewhere between 40 and 50. His hair and beard were both dyed gray, and were severely cropped. Everything about him spoke of discipline, probity, and order, and Guest hated him at sight.
'I lately had a letter from Bao Gahai,' said Guest, casting back in his memory for the details of that epistle. 'She claimed you to be teaching my brother the irregular verbs.'
'I am assisting him in his studies,' said Terzanagel.
'With the aid of books?' said Guest.
'But of course,' said Terzanagel.
'Then bring forth your books,' said Guest, 'for I am eager to receive instruction.'
The innocent Terzanagel was fool enough to take the Weaponmaster at his word, and shortly Guest was busy organizing a ceremonial Burning of the Books by the banks of the Yolantarath.
Once Guest had burnt Terzanagel's grammars, geographies, dictionaries, histories, biologies, genealogies, hagiographies, and mathematical treatises, he at last asked the obvious question:
'What now?'
Up till then, the Weaponmaster had not thought any further than the capture of the Witchlord's baggage train; but now that he did start thinking it seemed to him that he was in a pretty pickle. Guest Gulkan had but a thousand spears under the command of his sword. As far as he knew, the tax revolt was effectively shattered, and all the empire was with the Witchlord, or would be with it soon. He had lost his chance of escaping to Stranagor, or to Nork, or to Favanosin. A couple of bargees had already dived overboard and had escaped downstream in the flow of the Yolantarath, so Guest could not conceal his position for long.
'Why,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'now we portage these stores to the mountains of Ibsen-Iktus. The mountains are but a hundred leagues or so in the distance, and with these stores we can hold out there forever.'
'A hundred leagues!' said Guest.
'It is no great distance with the help of horses,' said Sken-Pitilkin equitably.
And after Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus had explained to him the details, Guest Gulkan began to see that his wizards were right. If they retreated to the valley of Yox with this burden of stores, then Lord Onosh would be hard-pressed to dig them out. But:
'We'll be trapped there,' said Guest.
