comfortable fit, its padding, its cunning fastenings — and in the ominous clefts between piece and piece, the gaps at neck and shoulder.
I did not care.
I felt a lightening of my spirits. I had been imprisoned in a silken bower unable to break free; and now I once more rode beneath the twin suns of Scorpio and advanced into Kregan warfare. I did not know if Delia lived. I would find out. Of that I was certain.
The whole glittering procession marched firmly toward Chersonang and following us tailed a massive baggage train. No comforts would be missed on a Lohvian campaign. We would, in any case, spend only a few days on the march before we crossed the border and approached Chersonang city.
“You do realize, Dray, that that she-leem only wants you to lead her army? She wants you to rush in first and break a way for the rest of her lackeys. You’ve had no say in the strategy, have you?”
“Yes, Thelda, and no, Thelda,” I said. “I have more or less promised. You must understand why I agreed.”
“But there’s no need!” She bit her lip while Seg shot a quick glance at her as she rode between us. She wore a proper riding habit, and once more looked a great lady, her switch in her gloved hand.
“Oh?”
Her nactrix jostled closer to mine; she reached out her hand to me and her face showed a strange look, of compassion, baffled desire, remorse — self-doubt, even. Thelda had never been one to exhibit the slightest self- doubt; even the business of the vilmy and fallimy flowers had not fazed her for long. About to pay attention to what was festering in her, I was caught by the long shrilling sounds of Hiclantung trumpets, those fabled silver trumpets of Loh. Intense activity boiled up.
“Look!”
Low over the horizon, skimming the ground and rising and falling over groves of trees, a myriad black shapes darted down on us. A swarm of midges they appeared at first; and in seconds the narrowing distance converted them into fanged and wide-winged impiters, metal-jangling, with fearsome Ullars perched on their backs waving their spears in ferocious glee at the onslaught. Between the scattered clumps of trees the ground undulated gently in waves of rippling grasses, a motionless sea endlessly in motion. The Ullars flew their mounts directly down on us, disdaining any attempt to stalk us from the sun. Instantly the compact formations of the Hiclantung infantry shook out into fresh patterns and I saw the forest of upraised left arms, the longbows bent, the sunlight glinting from the jagged arrow barbs.
“They will not catch us again!” yelled Seg.
He lifted in his stirrups, dragging out his long sword, his whole body animate with a dreadful yearning. The strange contrivances of Hiclantung now revealed their purposes. As the impiter host struck so rose the arrow storm to drive feathered shafts deep into breast and wing and belly. And, with that rustling arrow storm rose spiraling, tumbling, spreading, spinning nets, and chains, and bolas, and starred-blades. Great was the execution that day, as the army of Hiclantung repaid their score, as they showed the fliers of Umgar Stro how they treated any impetuous airborne assault.
A warrior flying a great bird, even a creature so fierce and powerful as an impiter, must necessarily be at a disadvantage against a warrior on his own two legs armed with a projectile weapon. It is difficult to shoot an accurate shaft from horseback — or zorcaback or sectrixback — and even more difficult from the wind-gyrating back of a corth or an impiter. It can be done by expert marksmen; and such marksmen were these indigo-haired half-men of Ullardrin. But the longbowmen of Hiclantung outshot them with ease. Aerial beast and man, one after another, more and more, fell helplessly from the sky. I saw two impiters entangled in the same net, their wings striving to beat and break the strands, saw them twist and fall and smash terminally into the ground. All around us the flying host was falling. Occasionally men of Hiclantung staggered back with an arrow shafted into them, or a spear gouging its way down past the soft skin between neck and collarbone. But the winged attackers had met their match. Discipline, training, knowledge of weapons, and no taint of treachery brought the victory. Watching those half-men up there as they wheeled aimlessly about above us, screeching their hatred and their defiance, shaking their weapons, trying to loose shafts down upon us, I was vividly reminded of the useless French cavalry charges I had witnessed on the field of Waterloo — and I began to build together ideas on how one should use this aerial cavalry, the proper function of airborne infantry. In all the blaze of action I had not loosed a single shaft.
Despite his exultant energy, Seg, too, had not shot. We both sat our nactrixes with full quivers strapped to our backs.
Queen Lilah rode across, her peak of hair giving her narrow face that demon-haunted look, her mouth open and shouting. She indicated by her carriage, the brightness of her eyes, the abandon of her gestures, how great the victory was. Everywhere over those undulating hills the sprawled corpses of impiter and Ullar showed how sorely the half-men had paid, how bloody had been the vengeance of the men of Hiclantung.
“You see, Dray Prescot!” Lilah screamed across at us.
“I see, Lilah.”
“Nothing can stand against us now!”
I pointed.
Over the crest of the hill appeared a long dark line. I could see the wink of suns-light on spear and sword, on bronze helmet and breastplate. Regiment after regiment, already deployed, broke into a jog-trot down the slope of the hill. And then, around the flanks broke a spray of cavalry, squadron on squadron of nactrixes. Their riders whooped in the saddle, lifting, their weapons glittering bright. Lilah’s face twisted into itself. Her switch came down with a thwack into her nactrix’s flank. Before she bounded away she screamed at me: “There is your enemy, Dray Prescot! There are the Harfnar of Chersonang! Charge! Destroy them all!”
But, already, it was too late.
Whoever had organized this affair, be it Orpus or Hwang or Lilah herself, had miscalculated. After the formations adopted by the Hiclantung army which had so successfully defeated the flying troops of Umgar Stro, they were in no position to resist the punishing and sudden attack from the army of Chersonang. In an instant the leading echelons were upon us. Even as the men of Hiclantung broke and ran I was surrounded by viciously-striking half-men. Queen Lilah’s army was converted in an instant into a running, shrieking, panic-stricken mob. And Seg, Thelda, and I were marooned in a savage and destructive sea of hostile blades.
Chapter Seventeen
I fought.
Oh yes, I fought. To have once more a tangible foeman before me, to feel the bite of his steel on my blade, to swing and feel that psychic shock as my brand bit back into his skull or body or limb, to feel the electric energy of it tingling up my arm, to do and feel all these things came to me with a great and dark joy. I confess it now; I joyed, then, in that battle as I seldom joy in mere fighting and killing. It seemed to me that every foeman who came up against me might be Umgar Stro, although common sense told me he would be directing the battle from some safe spot in the rear. I felt a personal animosity against every one of these Ullars and these Harfnars. For, between them, had they not taken my Delia of Delphond from me?
The Harfnars were a strange-looking people, and yet close to men as men are known on this Earth, and in nowise as weird or uncanny as the Rapas or Ochs or Fristles with whom I was familiar. Hereditary foemen of Hiclantung, they were, whose animosity stretched back to the day when the Harfnars had taken over the city of Chersonang after the withdrawal of Walfarg’s forces. They were strong, cunning, devilish, with flat noses as wide across their faces as their lips, with brilliant lemur-like eyes set above, which gave their countenances a curious boxlike construction, forcibly abetted by the squared-off chin and forehead. They were brightly clad in checkered garments of flowing silk and satin and humespack, trimmed with fur, with the dull gleam of bronze corselet and pauldrons shining through ominously.
So we fought, Seg and I, seeking to protect Thelda and reach a solid knot of Hiclantung cavalry isolated on the crest of one of the small hills. This was the remnant of Hwang’s regiment. Arrows darkened the air about us.
