But if he, Ortega, won, would there be a victory?
If he only knew the answer to that one…
Dillia
Asam and Mavra Chang looked out on their army. It wasn’t huge, by the standards of the history of the universe, but it was immense in terms of the Well World.
“Six weeks,” Asam muttered to himself, “all this in six weeks.”
She heard him, turned, and smiled. “If we had more time, we’d do even better,” she told him. “The Entries are still coming through.”
It was, in fact, mostly an Entry army, an army composed of creatures that flew, crawled, slithered, spun, and even oozed. Roughly a hundred and fifty to two hundred from something like eighty hexes—eight thousand alien creatures. To that were added over a thousand Dillians, the best chosen by Asam to avenge Dillian honor, and perhaps a thousand more native Well Worlders who decided, on their own or on orders from their governments, to join this side for the fight.
Such an army had several problems, of course, mostly in terms of communications and logistics. Though simply insuring that the commanders of each racial company had translators and using Com speech where possible eased the former quite a bit.
As for feeding the horde, they would take with them what they could and forage what they could not. They were not an army of conquest but one on the move; still, their sense of destiny made them disregard a lot of feelings about property rights where they were going. Almost half the force were herbivores, like the Dillians, and could get along most anywhere even if the fare was less than appetizing. For the rest, well, they’d taken on some provisions but they would never last—or keep—over the long march. Food worried Mavra most of all, since some of the species were perfectly edible to some of the others.
Another problem was that they were getting too many from the west; redundancies better picked up along the way or left to prepare the way. Many simply hadn’t followed instructions, some couldn’t. One couldn’t adequately brief a billion-plus people.
The premium went to weaponry, and some of it was formidable. Nontech hexes required the crossbow, sword, axe, and pike. The Dillians could hold their own there, with some of the others getting training as they went along. In addition to the Dillians some of the others could handle projectile guns. It took very little training to use a submachine gun effectively, only discipline.
It was the high-tech hexes they feared. Dillia could not supply that sort of armament, and precious little could be bought or stolen by a neophyte army reborn naked into this world. And not much could be arranged for in six weeks, either.
“I’m just amazed that so many of the hexes who voted against us are represented here,” Mavra noted. “I would have expected a lot more trouble.”
Asam shrugged. “Not that many hexes will actually lay their lives on the line, no matter how they side politically. There’s a pretty good backlash of feeling that things would be a lot nicer if we’d only go away, which is what we’re trying to do. That’ll intensify when a force this size crosses a border. It’s easy to rattle the saber if the enemy’s five thousand or more kilometers distant.”
She nodded hopefully, then said, “But some will fight.”
“Some will fight,” he agreed. “And the decisive battle they’ll try and force will be a nasty one. Don’t kid yourself on that. A lot of these people will die before this is done.”
That was a sobering thought, and for a while she was silent. Finally she said, “There’s word that a deep- water army is forming, too. Did you know that?”
“I expected as much,” he replied. “Gypsy said we weren’t the only ones—and each hex is getting an equal number of Entries. Remember, Brazil called a lot of his old buddies to him, and there was the crew of your little world. I expect that deepwater force will be necessary, too.” He took out an overall map and studied it.
“You think he’s really going by sea, then?” she asked. “Up the Josele-Wahaca Avenue?”
“Seems logical,” Asam replied. “I’ll bet
She nodded. “And it’s a combination. Obie, Brazil, and Gypsy.” She paused. “Gypsy… I wish I knew more about him. Who he is.
“But your computer mostly did that sort of thing to other people,” Asam pointed out. “This Gypsy can only do it to himself.”
“So
“Your computer trusted him,” he noted.
She nodded. “But if he has equal power to Obie, then Obie could have been fooled. He’s too convenient, too good to be true.”
“We can’t do anything about it,” he said philosophically. “When the time comes, we’ll know—and then deal with it as best we can. What else can we do?”
She nodded grumpily. As it was, there were too many things in this operation that smelled. Enough to fool Ortega and the Council? She wondered. Who was fooling who?
The army moved. It was fairly easy at first, traveling up through Gedemondas along well-established trails, camping in long lines where possible and posting nocturnals as guardians of the camp. No opposition was expected in Gedemondas, of course, but it worried Asam that, strung out as they were and in cold, high altitudes, they were as vulnerable as they would ever be. Nothing opposed them, though. Gypsy had been correct; they would be unimpeded until Brazil, somewhere, sometime, surfaced.
She had hoped to contact or gather Gedemondans in the passage, but they were out of sight as usual. Occasionally one would be spotted, far off, or they would hear the eerie calls of the great white creatures echoing through mountain passes and around rocky walls, but nothing else. She was more than disappointed; she felt she had gone through that whole damned trip for nothing.
On the western slope of the Gedemondan mountains was a plain, the only flat area in the whole hex. Looking out on it from the high trail, she had the first twinges of memory.
That plain, so empty and peaceful now… She remembered a different time, a time when far different armies converged on that plain for a horribly bloody battle so very long ago.
Down on the flat, the sensations were even greater. They had come through just before the major armies had converged, she recalled. And over there they had met their Dillian guide, by that cabin—no, not that cabin, but the cabin’s predecessor, perhaps. And there from the north, had come the Yaxa on great, soaring orange wings…
She talked about it a lot with Asam, who had become her closest friend and confidant. He was warm and kind and understanding—and fascinated by her memoirs of a great event that he knew only from the dimness of history books.
Alestol, to the south, with its carnivorous plants exuding poisonous and hypnotic gasses, they were happy to bypass. The Alestolians had massed on the border, it was true, but could not get at the army if it didn’t come to Alestol. Although mobile, they were plants, they required occasional rooting in a soil that contained a certain balance of minerals and suspended gasses necessary to their continued existence. That had left Palim as the focus of intense diplomatic activity, with the council and Mavra’s forces playing on the huge, elephantine creatures. Their’s was a highly advanced high-tech hex whose inhabitants weighed in at more than a ton each.
But they were gentle giants; they had withdrawn when the warring forces of the Wars of the Well had approached, working out safe passage for one while taking no sides. There were never more than twenty thousand or so Palims in their entire hex—and, therefore, their entire race. They could see no profit in a fight and had voted abstention on the council. They abstained now.
But a hundred and twenty-one of them, all Entries, all former Olympians, joined the force. They were welcome. As herbivores they would place only a slight drain on supplies, but they could carry ten times the weight
