out of those zigging vovemen. Off on my travels again, I prayed that Farris and Nath and Barty and all the others — including Seg when he had recovered — would, indeed, recreate the Army of Vondium.
For much of the journey the River of Shining Spears paralleled my course. Once I had taken a roundabout way to the Blue Mountains, by way of Delphond, riding a hired zorca. I felt that Korf Aighos would have dealt very harshly with the invaders of Delia’s country. Filbarrka ran the wide plains country at the foot of the Blue Mountains in the fork of the two rivers, and that country, I believed, was the best zorca country in Paz. Now I was going to put to the test the theories Filbarrka held. Despite all the long series of misfortunes, despite what had happened, despite my intense sensation of loneliness, despite the foreboding dread with which I viewed the future in spite of my brave words, I still experienced a profound excitement at what was proposed.
Vallia swirled past below and I ate roast vosk sandwiches and drank superb Kregen tea brewed on the little spirit stove packed within a sturm-wood box. I looked up. Yes, there he was, the Gdoinye, the giant raptor of the Star Lords. A beautiful scarlet and golden bird, glistening in the mingled rays of the Suns of Scorpio, he flew lazily above me, looking down with one beady eye from his sideways cocked head. The Star Lords wanted to know my doings. Well, I felt the uplifting sense that I was far more involved with what I was doing in the here and now, attempting to hold Vallia together, than in the machinations of the Everoinye, who could hurl me back to Earth, four hundred light years away, at a whim. There appeared to be no sign of the white Savanti dove.
More out of habit than with a positive feeling of enmity, I shook my fist at the Gdoinye. He slanted a wing, and flew away. I went back to my food, and scooped a fistful of palines. There was a squish pie in the hamper and I thought of Inch, and sighed, and so prepared to finish the long flight and bring the flier to earth. I did not anticipate too much trouble in finding Filbarrka. He would be leading the resistance and, I felt sure, the local people would be solidly on his side, the Vallian side, against the mercenaries and flutsmen and aragorn who had flooded in on the misery of Vallia. A few careful inquiries in out of the way places, and I would be directed to him. I just had to steer clear of the occupation forces.
These things worked out to plan and I caught up with Filbarrka as, big, bluff, red-faced, happily twitching his fingers together, he watched his zorcamen run rings around a hapless party of totrixmen. I landed the flier and walked across, aware of the bows bent against me. But Filbarrka recognized me and bellowed a cheerful greeting.
“Lahal, majister! I am glad to welcome you to the fun. See how the rasts run!”
The totrixmen were remorselessly cut down. I did not particularly relish the sight; but it had to be done if you concede that the freedom and happiness, not to say health, of a country matters more than the lives of its harsh invaders.
The amusing thing here was that Filbarrka did not seem in the least surprised to see me. He talked away, filled with his news, as we jogged along together. In a predominantly grass land I would have thought that guerilla tactics would prove particularly difficult; but Filbarrka would have none of that.
“We ride rings around ’em, majister! And there are the foothills of the Blue Mountains if things get tough.”
My flier was stashed away in a wood and the locals would keep an eye on it. The country was pastureland, lush and lovely, well watered and wooded, and zorcas could live here as though grazing in a zorca heaven. I told Filbarrka that as I was the emperor now, and the Blue Mountains and this plains section of it called Filbarrka, the same name for man and country, was the empress’s, he, Filbarrka na Filbarrka, was now an imperial Justicar and might style himself Nazab. He was pleased. But titles, I felt, meant little to him beside the thrill of simply riding a zorca.
I told him the problem.
He fired up at once. Eager, alive, filled with a fretting spirit, he tore into the problem.
“Voves. Ah, yes, voves…”
He had seen voves in action, having visited my clans in Segesthes at the invitation of Hap Loder. Now he began to talk in his quick, bubbling way, red-faced, twitching, full of cunning and guile and sound common sense.
“As San Blarnoi says,” he observed. “Preparation is improved by digestion. Ha! We have a snug little camp in a fold of the hills — pimples to a Blue Mountain Boy, to be sure — where we can eat and drink
— and think. But the tactical situation vis-a-vis a zorca and a vove is fascinating, fascinating. And I have had thoughts, by Vox, yes!
“No clansman would dream of riding against voves with zorcas.”
He did not say: “But they are only shaggy clansmen,” as many a wight would have done in Vallia. For, was not I, Dray Prescot, taken for just such a shaggy graint of a clansman?
He did say with bluff politeness: “We do not have voves to go up against voves with, majister, as they do on the Great Plains.”
“Discard all notions that I can magically produce an army of vove cavalry. The damned Hamalese burned most of the galleons. I’d hazard a guess that the shipping from Zenicce has been engaged to transport these voves we’re up against. And our own sailing skyships were dispersed and smashed up by the storm at Sicce’s Gates. We’re on our own, Nazab Filbarrka. It is zorcas for us-”
“What could be better?” He rubbed his hands as we stepped away from the steeds where handlers were already leading them off, talking to them, cajoling them, for every Filbarrkian loves a zorca. We entered the camp area, tents under the trees in a fold in the hills. The weather remained bright; but I fancied it would rain before morning. The food was good, straight from a looted caravan. Filbarrka ate and drank as hugely as he talked. “The zorca is close-coupled, we know that. A good animal can turn on a copper ob. So we can run rings around voves-”
“They charge in an unbroken knee-to-knee mass.”
“Naturally. They aim to crush anything in their way.”
“They do.”
“So, majister, we are not in the way.”
I quaffed good Vallian wine and hid my smile.
The problem spread out for Filbarrka spurred him on as he would never spur on a zorca. I had my own ideas which I intended should meld in with his, so as to maintain the pleasant harmony. He shared my view that if an army was really serious about fighting to win and to stay alive, or as many swods as might be who would stay alive, the discipline must be instant and automatic. That demanded high-quality officers, and these, too, must instantly obey the orders of their generals. As to these latter, if Filbarrka himself was to be a Kapt, I fancied I’d take his recommendation on the others to be appointed. He drank his wine and then looked at me, his face large and happy in the lamplight.
“How long do I have, majister? And — numbers?”
“As to numbers, the reports I have indicate the clans brought over at least six divisions.”
He nodded, for the calculation was easy. A division consisted of a thousand warriors. The clansmen stuck to the old ways of ranking, so that their Jiktars who commanded the divisions did, in fact, command a thousand.
“By their colors, weapons and harness, it seems, there is more than one clan involved. From what I have been told I have identified the Clan of Rudimwy. The others are unknown to me and must come from north and east of the parts I know.”
“Six thousand vove-mounted cavalry, clansmen, renowned and feared.” He brisked up. “Life is going to be interesting.”
“As to time — yesterday. The army or armies that menace us from the southwest cannot be discounted. The lice that infest Vallia daily suck more blood. And Vondium’s army is not yet rebuilt, not ready.” A nasty thought occurred to me. “Anyway, it will be interesting to see who can train and provide their force first; the army in Vondium or you here.”
That got to him. As I say — nasty.
He drank again and one of his lieutenants — a raffish bunch, these, liberally bedecked with the ritualistic trappings of zorcamen — leaned across and passed the opinion that any zorcaman of Filbarrka, of the Blue Mountains, which was the blessed Delia’s province, could do what ten of those fat and callous-arsed citizens of Vondium could do, and in half the time, by Vox!
That made it my turn to hide my face in the wine cup.
Presently I asked about Korf Aighos of the Blue Mountain Boys.
