'No,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'for if we have no alternative then we'll withdraw to the waters of the Swelaway Sea, and throw ourselves upon the mercy of the Safrak Bank.'
And, with that reserve plan having been explained to all of Guest Gulkan's force, the great retreat began.
Chapter Fifteen
Volvo Marp: a high pass connecting the riverlands of the Yolantarath with the uplands of the Ibsen-Iktus Mountains. The climb to Volvo Marp is steep, and takes one to such perilous heights that it is difficult for the newcomer to find air enough to breathe. Beyond this pass lies the Hidden Valley of Yox, a barren rift bereft of trees and unyielding of water; and a transit of this wasteland allows an assault upon Zomara Pass, the conquest of which will bring the traveler into the valley of Ul-donlok, home of the wizard Ontario Nol.
The Witchlord Onosh and the Rovac warrior Thodric Jarl thought their defeated enemies would surely make a stand at Locontareth, and in this expectation they marched in good order downriver, hoping to tempt the rebels from the city and smash them in a decisive battle.
'If that proves not possible,' said Jarl, 'then we will take the city by siege.'
Thodric Jarl rejoiced in sieges. To him, a siege was even more satisfying than a pitched battle. After all, in the heat of battle, one's enemies are apt to fight with hope in their hearts – and rightly so, for battle is the province of chance. But the slow, sure, remorseless, clutching, clamping, throttling procedures of siege give the victim far fewer resources by way of hope. Those besieged are by definition defeated already, so in many ways a siege is like having your enemy staked out helplessly beneath the burning sun, and putting your boot to his throat, and putting your weight to the boot.
Then crushing down.
So while Thodric Jarl advanced upon Locontareth, he was diligent in planning for siege, and sifted from the ranks of his army all those who were habitual citizens of Locontareth, or who had been through there often in the course of military service or activities of trade. The Witchlord Onosh, who lacked Jarl's experience of siege, monitored Jarl's preparations with all the diligence of an ideal student granted the privilege of watching his master at work.
Only on arrival at Locontareth did Thodric Jarl and the Witchlord realize that Guest Gulkan had fled. The city opened its gates to them, so they were spared a battle – but the important thing was to catch Guest, for the boy must be captured and quelled lest he prolong the revolution.
So Thodric Jarl began to research Guest Gulkan's whereabouts, and the first people to help him with these researches were the dralkosh Zelafona and her dwarf-son Glambrax, who were discovered living in an abandoned dog kennel in the shadows of the ruling hall of Locontareth.
From that dog kennel, mother and son had been running a vigorous business, selling roast rats and an ersatz brew cooked up from acorns. This is scarcely surprising, for the witches of the Sisterhood were ever able in business, and indeed it was the supreme commercial skills of the Sisterhood which first led witches into conflict with wizards, for since its very inception the Confederation of Wizards had struggled to dominate trade and commerce in all those lands under its dominion.
Thus it happened -
But that is ancient history, for the great pogrom against the witches is long over, and this text concerns itself not with the days of antiquity but with things still fresh in the minds of living men (and living women, too, if women be admitted to have minds, which seems a reasonable proposition, for all that nearly half the world disputes it).
With Zelafona discovered, and with Glambrax uncovered likewise, it was soon found that they had played no part in the recent troubles, for Zelafona had early disguised herself as a beggar woman, and Glambrax had soon betrayed his forced oath to the revolutionary Sham Cham, deserting from the revolutionary army to be at his mother's side.
Thus Jarl was forced to seek other sources of intelligence, which he did. And thus the gray-bearded Thodric Jarl discovered that the young and athletic Guest Gulkan had fled to Stranagor, and to Nork, and to Favanosin, making his way to all three destinations simultaneously.
'If Guest has gone toward Nork,' said Jarl, 'then his swords will be of little danger to our peace. The country thereabouts lies in barbarous wilds of forest and hill, fraught with bogs and bear barrows. In such a wasteland, he'll find no allies apt for recruitment. Rather, he may have to fight for a bitter season simply to win his way to the coast. At best he can secure his escape, and no more.'
'So,' said Lord Onosh, absorbing this.
'If, on the other hand, the boy has fled to Stranagor,' said Jarl, 'then we face a far greater danger. The countryside between here and Stranagor is rich and well-populated, with much discontent there to be found.'
Jarl did not itemize the reasons for that discontent, for some margin of diplomacy remained to the Rovac warrior despite his upbringing, and the sorry truth is that the discontents of Stranagor flowed largely from the derelictions of the Witchlord's tax policies.
'And Favanosin?' said Lord Onosh, pursuing the question of Guest's third option.
'If the boy has truly withdrawn to Favanosin,' said Thodric Jarl, 'then I think him planning to ambush us on the road, or to cheat our troops down that road then fall in force upon Locontareth itself.'
'So what would you suggest?' said Lord Onosh.
'The greatest danger is Stranagor,' said Jarl. 'So I suggest we send a full two-thirds of our army to seize, secure or besiege that city, as the case may be. Meanwhile, we should send probing patrols in strength toward Nork and Favanosin, at least to be sure that no thousands lie waiting there in ambush.'
Thus it was done; and so the Witchlord's forces had been greatly diminished by the time the news came that Guest Gulkan was in their rear.
'He has made an error,' said Thodric Jarl calmly. 'To launch himself upon a civil war he must rouse a major city to his cause, whereas it seems he had chosen to turn bandit. As such, he becomes a nuisance, but is no longer a danger. I suspect he has taken the advice of wizards, which cowards have more concern for their own skins than for the conquest of empire.'
Here a difference in perspective. While Guest Gulkan's tutelary wizards had been very much concerned with securing the safety of their own skins, the Rovac warrior Thodric Jarl and the Witchlord Onosh had been concerned rather with the possibility of finding themselves with a full-scale civil war on their hands. By their standards, Guest and his wizards had proved to be pusillanimous cowards by flinching from the challenges of civil war.
'What now?' said Lord Onosh, when it was discovered that Guest had crept round behind his father, and, like a mouse triumphant in its devastations, had successfully gnawed away his father's baggage train to nothing.
'Now?' said Jarl, who saw no need for the question, since he thought the rightful disposal of a nibbling mouse to be far too obvious to require anything in the way of debate. 'Why, now we turn. We turn. We march. We catch them. We smash them. But all this we do with care, because there is a danger that they will try to trick their way around our flanks.'
Though Jarl had by now decided that Guest, Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus were a trio of cowards, he nevertheless realized they had been trickier than he had expected, and might be trickier still before this game was through. Accordingly, he left a strong force in Locontareth, and advanced cautiously with scouts riding far out on his southern flank, and with scouting parties riding the northern bank of the Yolantarath just in case Guest had sneaked his army across the water and was attempting some ambitious manoeuvre beyond the visible horizon to the north.
The end result was that Guest and his people had got clean away to the mountains by the time Jarl closed with their previous location. Furthermore, in his retreat, Guest had got away with his brothers Morsh and Eljuk, two captives whose fate Lord Onosh lamented bitterly.
But at least the mystery of Guest's precise circumstances and intentions appeared to be at an end, for the boy had left behind him evidence and witnesses in plenty – most notably, witnesses in the form of the barge crews and their captains, who had been turned loose after cooperating with the labor of the withdrawal.
'Then he is gone,' said Jarl in satisfaction, 'and that is the end of him.'
