The cadre began to train with wooden staves. I had them cut to a modest twelve-foot length. A number of soldiers slaving on the buildings were spirited away by Holly, who used her underground route to good purpose, and these men were only too happy to join us. Their vacancies had to be explained. A death of a slave was a common event in Magdag, and even though the overlords were aware, as Glycas often complained to me, that there were slaves hiding in the workers’ warrens, the expeditions to rout them out had to be undertaken with due military care. Glycas loved to ride into the outskirts of the ghetto warrens. He and his sectrix-mounted friends would cut down the workers and slaves not clever enough to run at the first sounds. I suppose between them they killed a thousand or so slaves a season; this was a number scarcely missed in the hundreds of thousands who labored on the buildings of Magdag. Then the overlords would ride out in their mail and their glory and raid adjacent cities who owed them suzerainty. They had a jolly old life of it, the overlords of Magdag. The slave soldiers we took in were sworn to secrecy with vows that made their hair curl and their bowels turn to water. They were set to work to drill and discipline the volunteer workers. I personally scrutinized every man at this stage. The soldiers — men of Zair mostly, but there was a sprinkling of the fair-haired men of Proconia, and a number of Ochs, Fristles, Rapas — could make little of the twelve-foot staves. They called them staves, thinking that was their function. I did not disillusion them at this stage. That would come later, and as staves they would also serve a purpose. Soon a small group gathered around me, men I ventured to think would stick to the last.
“You have an overlord of Magdag charging down on you,” I said to them as we sat around the hovel, on the beaten-earth floor in the flickering light of the candle. “He is clad in mail. He sits upon a sectrix, which means he towers over you, on foot. And he is bringing his damned great long sword down to cleave your skull to your neck bones.” I stared at them, these dozen or so men on whom I must rely. “I don’t want the answer, ‘Run,’ when I ask you the question, ‘What do you do?’” We weren’t past the joking stage yet. Genal, for sure, would have said “Run.”
They coughed and shuffled, and Bolan said viciously: “Leap on the sectrix’s back and jab your dagger into the vosk’s eyes.”
“Fine. How do you get past the sword?”
We argued on. I saw that Genal had the right idea when he said sturdily: “Throw something — a rope weighted with lead — around the sectrix’s legs.” He laughed nastily. “That should bring the overlord to earth.”
“Fine. You’ll have to get close to do that with any accuracy. The overlords will be in squadrons and platoons. The ones following will cut you down-”
“So?”
I spread my hands. “Talking in military terms there are two methods of dealing with armored men, and these overlords wear hauberks of mesh iron, link mail. Some wear leg mesh; most do not. Some wear solid helmets; some rely on their coif. There are still two main methods of dealing with them, of dismounting them.”
“Kill them,” grunted Bolan.
“Yes. You can drive a relatively small hole through the mail, or you can bash a great wedge of it in, cutting it or not according to the opposed strengths.” I thrust my rigidly outstretched forefinger at Bolan. He flinched back, but not by very much. He would be a useful man. “To punch a hole you need an arrow, a dart, a javelin or-” I hesitated, found Maspero’s genetic language pill had failed me, and so used the English word. “Or a pike.”
I opened out my other three fingers rigidly alongside the first finger and I slashed down in a quasi-karate blow at Bolan. This time he did not move a muscle — but, of course, he blinked. “To slash a man’s guts in half you need a long sword, an ax, a-” Again the pill failed me in the exact meaning I required. I went on: “You can bash with a mace or, if you have the requisite skill, with a morning star.” Again I used English for the elusive words. “To slash, you can also use a species of bill, a halberd, a glaive, a fauchard. And these weapons are those on which we will concentrate our production.”
We spent the rest of that session going over and over the weapons which, to these men, were new. Just before it was time for me to leave, and these men had no idea where I went when I disappeared from their sight in the warrens, I put the final indignity to them.
I have mentioned that the men of Segesthes considered the shield as the cowards’ article, a weak, treacherous, miserable item of warfare, one to which they would not deign to give the name of weapon. They had never seen an offensively-used shield. So I took a break and then, when we had drunk a little wine, I said: “Finally, the production lines will make shields.”
I quieted them. The men of the inner sea, also, disregarded shields. Only Ochs used shields, a tiny round targe clasped in one of their six limbs with which they attempted to counter aggression. Men derided the Ochs for their little shields. I spent some time arguing; finally I said: “It is settled. When I give you the patterns for the pikes, the glaives, and halberds, you will also receive patterns for shields. These will be manufactured. It is ended for now.” I stood up, looking down on them.
“I will see you tomorrow night. Remberee.” I left them.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Princess Susheeng of Magdag was a vibrant, alluring, sensual creature. There was no doubt of that at all. It was all too clearly apparent as she reclined on a low divan covered in ornate green silk, the lighter green of the silks partially covering her white body seductive in their flowing curves and hidden shadows. Poor Vomanus in his buff coat and black boots looked gauche and out of place; essentially I felt the same way, no matter that I wore a lounging robe of that detested green. I had felt it politic to do so; now, clearly, it had been a mistake. The intimate little supper party was over and now Susheeng was devising ways of getting rid of Vomanus. I was countering them with a suaveness I had to admire in myself.
“Oh, Vomanus, my pet,” said Susheeng in a dripping-honey voice. “I wish to speak with Drak alone.”
She could have said, simply: “Vomanus, clear out.” Since she had not, it was obvious that her brother Glycas’ warning of the importance of Vallia had got through to her.
Vomanus, casting me a dirty look, rose and, with a graceful farewell speech, left. Susheeng turned her bright eyes on me. Her breast rose and fell beneath the scrap of green silk.
“Why do you always avoid me, Drak? Time after time I seek you out — and you are not there. Why?”
I was astonished. This proud and haughty woman, a beauty in any man’s eyes, was in effect begging me. She leaned gracefully toward me, and the green silk moved again tumultuously.
“I keep myself busy, Princess.”
“You do not like me!”
“Of course I do!”
“Well, then. .? If you knew how lonely I am. Glycas is forever busy about matters of state. The campaign in Proconia does not go well.” I had to keep from shouting aloud my joy. She went on, slumping back now, her feelings of neglect beginning to stir different emotions. “All he can talk about are the pirates from Sanurkazz. Everyone is wondering when that arch pirate, that evil devil’s spawn, that cramph, the Lord of Strombor, will strike again. He cost me a cool three merchantmen last season. Money of mine, lost to me, in his filthy hands. This Pur Dray, this Lord of Strombor, why, he is a worse Krozair than that mangy Pur Zenkiren.”
I felt drunk.
I had quaffed but little wine, for I had to keep my wits about me. But — this was how the enemies I had sworn to oppose talked about me, about Zenkiren, about the Krozairs of Zy! I felt suddenly strong and liberated, rejoicing in the powers that Sanurkazz extended across the Eye of the World.
“I feel sorry for you, Princess,” I said. “But I believe you also raid the men of the southern shore. Is this not so?”
“Of course! They deserve it; they are rasts before Grodno.”
Then, shaking those creamy shoulders, she reached for her goblet and drank deeply. Her face was more flushed than usual. I thought of Natema. I tensed myself, ready for what might come. There would be no ghetto warrens for me this night.
The work of preparations was going well, and already the production lines were turning out long, beautifully
