“I am told, majister, that you will not hire my men. We relinquished our allegiance to Kov Colun to join you. We are honorable men, paktuns, whose living is by the sword. Tell me, majister, why you do not hire us to fight for you?”
I told him. He either didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. He could see that my new policy meant there would be no employment in Vallia for mercenaries in the future. As he turned to leave, much cast down, he said: “Well majister, at least Colun will not be there to see the defeat of his army.”
I quivered alert. I looked at the Rapa, and his vulture-face twitched and he went on quickly: “Kov Colun left the army by voller when we were encamped by that muddy little stream.”
I sagged back, both elated and dejected. The army was doomed. Colun had seen that, despite its apparent strength. So, that meant — where had the rast gone to stir up more trouble?
The Rapa did not know. Diligent inquiries elicited no further information. Colun had flown away and left them to their destruction. The question now was: Would the new army commander, Kapt Hangreal, fight? Or would he agree to terms? You may imagine the tenterhooks we were dancing on as we awaited his reply to our message. The reply was short and brutal. Kapt Hangreal was confident that his army could whip us and make a clean escape to the coast. So, to my chagrin, we were committed to a fight. That was the Battle of Irginian.
Kapt Hangreal completely misjudged the strength of the Phalanx, as the aragorn had done. Formed, compact, a solid mass of crimson and bronze, glittering with steel, the Third Phalanx took the foam-crested shocks of the cavalry charges. When Hangreal flung in his infantry our own churgurs swept in from the flanks. And, all the time, the deadly arrows crisscrossed. His aerial cavalry played a small part, until Seg’s Bowmen rode up, dismounted, and shot them out of the sky as they tried to attack in flank. Well, it was a battle. It was not a particularly bad battle. Long before it could develop into a slogging match the Phalanx moved. Surrounded by clouds of churgurs and archers, the Phalanx charged. The Battle of Irginian was over.
The local people, many of whom were sending their strongest sons to join the new armies of Vallia, cleared up. There was no time to waste. With a single day for recuperation the Army of Vondium started in motion, heading back for the capital. Forces of observation were left to ensure no flare-up occurred as the lines of prisoners marched for the coast. I left Seg and Nath in command and took voller and flew for Vondium. Now it was Zankov’s turn. Now, perhaps, we would reach the beginning of the end.
Chapter Twenty
Drak had not returned so far from Faol. Jaidur had not been released by the Sisters of the Rose from whatever deviltry they were egging him on to. And Zeg had not as yet responded to the call to leave Zandikar where he was king. As for the distaff side of the family, the babies, Velia, and Didi — the daughter of Gafard, the King’s Striker, and our daughter Velia — were growing apace but not yet old enough to cause us the kind of pangs their elders were so good at. Lela, presumably with Jaidur, was off adventuring. And Dayra — ah, well! No word had come from Barty telling me how he fared in his renewed search for Dayra, and I fancied that Ros the Claw would lead him a merry dance, by Zair, yes!
And, as you will instantly perceive, Delia had not returned home.
I mumped about the city, and in between brooding over the unkind cuts of Fate got on with rebuilding the army.
There were a few burs to spare for lighter moments and Jilian proved a tough and cunning opponent at Jikaida. She had a most devilish way of cutting in from a flank when you were sure everything on that side was battened down tight. Also, of course, her person was such as to distract the most hardened old misogynist from the board and the marching ranks of model men.
“By Vox, Jak! As Dee-Sheon is my witness something addles your brains. You’ve let my left-flank Chuktar in — and, see-” and here Jilian did the most diabolical things to my model men. “Do you bare the throat?”
“Aye. Aye, I bare the throat.”
We sat on a snug balcony bowered in moon-blooms and with a table handy loaded with silver flagons of wine. The night was cool and refreshing, and She of the Veils smiled down serenely, her fuzz of pink and golden light shedding a mellow roseate glow over the rooftops and battlements of the palace spread out below. Jilian yawned and covered her face with her hand, and then stretched.
“You had your girls hard at it today.”
“And every day. But I wish I had been able to lay that cramph Colun by the heels.”
“He’ll turn up again,” I said, comfortably. “That sort of villain always does. The only trouble is-”
“He’ll turn up when it’s most damned inconvenient, I know!”
Jilian wore one of Delia’s loose lounging robes all of white sensil and she shimmered like an ivory flame in the moonlight. During the day she strode about among her girls and although she did not crack and snap her whip, she carried the ugly thing looped up around her arm.
The Enevon walked onto the balcony from the room beyond, rubbing his eyes, bringing fresh problems to be sorted out.
The exact spot at which we would like to meet Zankov and his wild clansmen had been chosen. If Opaz smiled, then the enemy would choose that route. In order to encourage Opaz to make up his mind I’d sent high- speed forces out to cut the bridges of alternative routes and to harass Zankov enough to make him swing, like a bull, to face the fancied threats. If he was prepared to follow the guidelines I had set for him, he would — Opaz willing — pass across the stretch of land known as the Kochwold. If he did, as we prayed, we would be waiting for him. And this waiting came as a vast and unexpected reprieve. Mind you, as a wild and hairy clansman myself I should have anticipated what was occurring up there in Jevuldrin. Clansmen are clansmen, accustomed to the airy sweeps of the Great Plains. When they ride through hamlets and villages, seeing the spires of cities rising before them, they feel all the itchy-fingered avarice of your true reiver. Plunder was retarding the onward march of Zankov’s hired army. And, that very plunder was the hire money. I raged and fumed and could not, in all conscience, following the sad example of King Harold, allow the enemy to devastate the country. A policy of scorched earth would have served, perhaps; but the country up there was generally in the hands of that rast Ranjal Yasi, Stromich of Morcray, the twin brother to the strom, Rosil Yasi. Zankov was having either to fight or come to terms with his old ally.
So the Kochwold it was to be. Zankov was clearly aiming to march to the east around the mountains, known as the Mountains of Thirda to some folk, rather than the west of them. That way would force him to make too many river crossings. East about he would have fewer major rivers to bar him. Kochwold extended its sweep of moorland on the southern borders of Jevuldrin and the northern borders of Forli. The last I had heard of Lykon Crimahan, the Kov of Forli, was that he was fighting desperate guerilla actions, with the help of us Valkans as promised, and slowly, painfully slowly, regaining some of his province, the Blessed Forli. Now, all that was, if not irrelevant, then of far less importance than the rampaging invasion of ten thousand wild clansmen.
Oh, yes, ten thousand. A further four thousand had been disembarked. And, again, that explained the disembarkation point still further. The ships from Zenicce were engaged in ferrying men and voves across, and the passage between Zamra to the south and the islands below Vellin to the north afforded relatively sheltered waters. No doubt they were making a third trip even now. So that, starkly, was a most potent reason why our waiting, useful as it was, must be curtailed.
“Come on, Jak! For the sake of Vox’s Arm! You look as though your zorca’s run off and you’ve found a dead calsany.”
“I was wishing Delia was here.”
Jilian smiled. “So do I. From all I know of the empress she would have my girls trimmed up in no time at all.”
“Oh, aye. Mind you, I don’t think she ever went through Lancival. Although, everything is possible with that lady.”
“Everything, Jak. Everything.”
She spoke in so knowing a way that my old head snapped up. But Jilian just smiled her smile, her dark hair
